UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


^p  ©rlanHo  5.  S'miti) 


BALANCE  :  The   Fundamental    Verity.     Crown 

8vo. 
ETERNALISM:    A  Theory  of   Infinite   Justice. 

Crown  8vo,  gilt  top,  f  1.25  net.      Postage,  13 

cents. 


BALANCE 

THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


BALANCE 

THE    FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


BY 


ORLANDO  J.    SMITH 

AUTHOR   OF   "kTERNALISM" 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

0bt  iSitoetjJibe  p^re??,  Cambribgc 
1904 


COPYRIGHT    1904    BY    ORLANDO  J.    SMITH 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  September  IQ04 


C  ) 
CO 


3U 
SSSb 


CONTENTS 

The  Power  of  the  Sea  curbs  the  Sea  —  Physi- 
^  cal  Excess  turns  upon  Itself,  defeats  Itself 
CO        —  Excess  is  defeated  also  in  Chance,  into 

M 

•-1  which  Physical  Force  does  not  enter  — 
Deficiency  balances  Excess  —  Nature's  Law 
of  Balance 


CO 

CD 


II 

Equilibrium,  in  the  Sense  of  Actual  Rest,  is 
Unknown  —  Nature  is  a  State  of  Ceaseless 
Motion,  regulated  by  Balance 


III 

The  Scientific  Interpretations  of  Nature  point 

5        to  the   Single   Interpretation,   that   Balance 

ii         rules  the  World  —  "To  Every  Action  there 

lu         IS    an   Equal    Reaction,"    is    the    Supreme 
tc 

Statement 
c 

^  IV 

No  Force  works  aimlessly  or  wanders  away 

into    Extinction  —  Balance   is    Supreme   in 

[     V     ] 


15 


CONTENTS 


the  Small,  as  well  as  in  the  Great,  Processes 
of  Nature  —  Every  Physical  Transformation 
includes  Exact  Equivalence  and  Compensa- 
tion 24 

V 

Man's  Part  in  Nature  —  Progress  by  Antag- 
onism —  Nature's  Process  is  by  Test  and 
Trial,  by  unfolding,  changing,  ripping  up, 
undoing  and  redoing  —  Error  dies  in  the 
Struggle  31 

VI 

Action  and  Reaction  in  Human  Affairs  — 
From  Paganism  to  Christianity,  to  Asceti- 
cism, to  the  Crusades,  to  Exploration  and 
Commerce  —  Minor  Interactions  —  Reaction 
from  Words  and  Tones,  Speeches  and 
Thoughts  43 

VII 

The  Law  of  Consequences  —  The  Good  or 
Evil  in  Things  is  discovered  by  Obser- 
vation of  Consequences  —  Morals  are  de- 
termined by  the  Consequences  of  Human 
Actions  54 

[     vi     ] 


CONTENTS 


VIII 
Equivalence  is  the  Test  of  Truth  —  Our  Stand- 
ards are  Instruments  of  Equivalence  —  The 
Balancing  of  Alternatives  —  Reasoning  is  an 
Exploration  of  the  Undetermined,  a  Search 
for  Antecedents  and  Consequences  6i 

IX 

Compensation  in  Human  Affairs  —  Problems 
of  Business  are  Problems  of  Compensation  — 
Right  is  accomplished  by  rendering  Equiva- 
lents —  Duty  is  a  Debt,  literally  a  Due  — 
The  Golden  Rule  is  a  Law^  of  Equivalent 
Exchange  7^ 

X 

Order  is  Regulation ;  Balance  is  Regulator. 
Right  is  Correctness  ;  Balance  is  Corrector. 
Justice  is  Compensation  ;  Balance  is  Com- 
pensator—  Balance  is  Single  and  Supreme, 
without  a  Mate  or  Equal  80 

XI 

Natural   Justice  —  Compensation    in    Human 
Affairs  involves  a  Cycle  of  Beginning,  De- 
[     vii     ] 


CONTENTS 


velopment  and  Conclusion,  as  Seed  Time, 
Growth  and  Harvest  —  Tyranny  is  an  Anti- 
dote for  Mean  Spiritcdness,  and  Courage  is 
the  Antidote  for  Tyranny  —  Through  such 
Rude  Alternations  do  \vc  move  forward  84 

XII 
Justice  is  Incomplete  in  the  Present  Existence 
—  Our  Life  here  is  as  a  Broken  Part  of  a 
Broader  Life  —  If  Death  ends  All,  then  the 
Mass  of  Mankind  must  live,  toil,  suffer  and 
die  under  a  Condition  of  Hopeless  Injustice      92 

XIII 
The  Essential  Meaning  of  Religion  is  found  in 
the  Agreements,  and  not  in  the  Disagree- 
ments, among  Believers  —  There  are  Three 
Fundamental  Religious  Beliefs  :  ( i )  That 
the  Soul  is  Accountable  for  its  Actions ; 
(2)  That  the  Soul  survives  the  Death  of  the 
Body;  (3)  In  a  Supreme  Power  that  rights 
Things  99 

XIV 
The     Fundamental    Meaning   of     Religion    is 
revealed   by   its   History — Religion    recog- 

[     ^"'     ] 


CONTENTS 


nizes  that  Right  rules  the  World  —  Science 
recognizes  that  Balance  rules  the  World  — 
Religion  and  Science  are  in  Harmony,  not 
in  Conflict  1 19 

XV 

Religion  has  been  misinterpreted  and  per- 
verted —  Science  also  has  been  misinter- 
preted and  perverted  —  Religion  answers 
for  its  Perversions  as  Science,  Truth  and 
Right  answ^er  for  their  Perversions  —  The 
Value  of  a  Truth  is  measured  by  the  Magni- 
tude of  its  Perversions  124 

XVI 

Measuring  the  Value  of  Religion  by  its  Denial 
—  Only  One  School  of  Thought  denies 
Religion  —  Materialism  is  the  Doctrine  that 
Wrong  rules  the  World  —  Science  and  Re- 
ligion meet  on  Grounds  of  Life,  not  Death ; 
of  Persistence,  not  Annihilation  ;  of  Right, 
not  Wrong ;  on  the  Ground  that  the  Lavv^s 
of  Nature  are  Uniform,  not  Contradictory       138 


C   5^   ] 


BALANCE : 

THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


I 

The  Power  of  the  Sea  curbs  the  Sea  —  Physical  Ex- 
cess turns  upon  Itself,  defeats  Itself  —  Excess  is 
defeated  also  in  Chance,  into  which  Physical  Force 
does  not  enter  —  Deficiency  balances  Excess  — 
Nature's  Law  of  Balance. 

LONG  ISLAND  extends  into  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  for  more  than  one 
hundred  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
mainland.  The  ocean,  impelled  by  the  pre- 
vailing southwest  winds,  beats  with  great 
force  upon  the  island,  and  would  over- 
whelm it  but  for  a  series  of  sand-banks 
which  lie  next  to  the  sea  and  resist  the 
force  of  its  waves.  Inside  of  these  dunes 
[     •     ] 


BALANCE 


is  fin  almost  continuous  line  of  villages,  the 
itih^bi'tanis  of  which  live  in  no  fear  of  the 
sea,  though  they  know  that  one  of  its  storms 
would  inundate  their  low-l3'ing  lands  if  they 
were  unprotected  by  the  dunes. 

Against  the  dunes  the  ocean  wages  un- 
ceasing war,  retiring  a  little  for  rest  at  low 
tide,  renewing  the  conflict  with  the  turn 
of  the  tide,  and  rising  often,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  the  wind,  to  a  furious  assault. 
Each  day  the  ocean  wastes  more  force  in 
its  attacks  than  was  ever  exerted  upon  a 
human  battle-field,  and  each  day  it  suffers 
defeat. 

These  barriers  against  the  sea  were  not 
built  by  human  hands  nor  planned  by  hu- 
man thought,  though  no  modern  engineer 
could  have  designed  a  better  protection 
for  the  land  or  built  with  less  waste  of  ma- 
terial or  with  a  closer  calculation  of  the 
strain  on  the  different  parts  of  the  line 
of  defense.  On  the  western  shore  of  the 
island,  where  the  force  of  tlic  waves  is 
[    2    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

weaker,  owing  to  the  proximity  of  the 
mainland,  the  barriers  of  sand  lie  low;  to 
the  eastward  they  rise  higher  to  meet  the 
increasing  power  of  the  sea.  They  cut 
straight  across  large  bodies  of  the  sea  from 
one  point  of  land  to  another,  that  they 
may  present  no  weak  angle  to  the  enemy. 
The  dunes  are  so  constructed  as  to  present 
upon  their  whole  front  that  exact  angle  to 
the  line  of  the  prevailing  winds  that  will 
make  each  assault  of  the  sea  a  glancing 
blow. 

It  is  the  power  of  the  sea  which  forms 
these  barriers  against  its  own  depreda- 
tions. The  force  of  the  waves  lifts  the  sand 
from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  depositing  it 
upon  the  shore.  Each  wave  carries  a  little 
sand;  the  stronger  the  wave  the  more  sand 
does  it  carry;  the  severer  the  storm,  the 
higher  does  it  lift  the  sand  upon  the  dunes, 
the  more  impregnably  does  the  ocean 
fortify  its  shores  against  itself.  Why  the 
power  of  the  ocean  gives  that  exact  trend 
[     3     ] 


BALANCE 


to  the  dunes  which  makes  them  strongfest, 
is  explained  by  Darwin's  theory  of  natural 
selection :  only  that  form  of  dune  fitted  to 
resist  the  sea  could  survive. 

The  explanation  of  the  dunes  is  simple, 
the  processes  of  their  formation  still  con- 
tinuing and  being  open  to  examination. 
But  the  meaning  of  the  dunes  is  less  sim- 
ple. They  testify  to  the  fact  that  Nature 
curbs  the  excesses  of  the  sea  by  a  process 
quite  reasonable,  indeed  unavoidable.  The 
force  of  the  sea  is  turned  against  the  sea. 
This  fact,  and  numerous  other  facts,  sug- 
gest the  theory  that  in  some  way  all  excess 
is  curbed,  or  will  finally  defeat  itself;  that 
Nature  has  no  pendulum  which  swings  in 
one  direction  only. 

In  the  case  of  the  dunes  we  have  an 
illustration  of  physical  force  restraining 
and  defeating  itself.  Another  example  of 
Nature's  antagonism  to  excess,  into  which 
physical  force  does  not  enter,  is  found  in 
the  laws  of  chance  —  what  we  call  chance 

[      4      ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

or  luck  being  quite  as  much  under  the 
control  of  law  as  other  things.  In  a  draw- 
ing of  odd  and  even  numbers,  the  chance 
that  the  odd  number  —  using  the  odd  for 
illustration,  the  chances  of  the  even  num- 
ber being  the  same  —  will  emerge  in  the 
first  drawing  is  one  in  two;  the  chance 
that  the  odd  will  be  drawn  a  second  time 
is  one  in  four;  that  it  will  be  drawn  a  third 
time  is  one  in  eight;  a  fourth  time  one  in 
sixteen,  and  so  on.  There  is  one  chance  in 
1,024  that  the  odd  will  be  drawn  consecu- 
tivel}^  ten  times;  one  chance  in  1,048,576 
that  it  will  be  drawn  twenty  times;  one 
chance  in  a  thousand  millions  that  it  will 
be  drawn  thirty  times;  one  chance  in  a 
million  millions  that  it  will  be  drawn  forty 
times.    It  is  as  if  Nature  should  say: 

"  Against  the  consecutive  return  of  the 
odd  number,  I  double  the  barriers  with 
each  drawing.  It  is  not  alone  physical 
excess  which  produces  opposition;  it  is 
excess  in  whatever  form  it  appears  which 
[     5     ] 


BALANCE 

turns  upon  itself,  defeats  itself.  And  my 
law  is  no  more  asrainst  excess  than  against 
deficiency.  The  barriers  against  the  con- 
secutive return  of  the  odd  number  force 
the  return  of  the  delinquent  even  number. 
In  the  long  run,  the  odd  and  e\en  num- 
bers drawn  shall  be  equalized  repeatedly. 
"  So  far  as  you  overdraw  the  odd,  just 
so  far  you  underdraw  the  even.  If,  in  ten 
drawings,  you  have  drawn  the  odd  seven 
times,  and  the  even  three  times,  then  the 
odd  is  in  excess  bv  two  drawing^s,  and 
the  even  is  in  deficiency  by  two  drawings 
also.  Strictly  speaking,  nothing  is  ever  out 
of  balance  in  my  processes.  That  which 
is  overdone  in  one  direction  is  underdone 
equally  in  an  opposite  direction.  Excess 
can  exist  only  through  a  corresponding 
deficiency,  and  deficiency  can  exist  only 
through  a  corresponding  excess.  A  defi- 
cienc}^  in  crops  is  balanced  by  an  excess 
in  prices;  an  excess  in  crops  is  balanced 
by  a    deficiency    in    prices.     Equivalence 

[     6      ] 


I 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

is  universal,  all-present  and  all-powerful. 
This  is  my  law  of  Balance." 

We  live  in  a  world  in  which,  if  science 
and  philosophy  do  not  err,  there  is  cease- 
less motion  everywhere,  and  perfect  rest 
nowhere.  There  is  motion  in  the  heart  of 
the  granite  mountain,  in  the  minutest  por- 
tions of  the  human  body;  motion  great 
and  insignificant,  perceptible  and  imper- 
ceptible, disastrous  and  beneficent.  Is  this 
motion  —  which  is  as  universal  in  human 
thought  and  action  as  in  matter  —  under 
no  restraint,  no  order,  no  law  ?  or  is  it  un- 
der the  control  of  some  power  or  principle 
which  curbs  excess,  restrains  deficiency, 
restores  balance,  grants  compensation? 
Whether  the  return  of  equivalence  and 
compensation  is  not  fundamental  in  Na- 
ture, alike  in  physics  and  in  the  human 
soul  —  whether  the  rational  foundation  for 
man's  hope  for  a  future  life,  and  for  his 
belief  in  the  rightness  of  the  world-order, 
should  not  be  sought  for  in  the  supremacy 
[     7     ] 


BALANCE 

of  equivalence  and  compensation  —  this  is 
the  subject  of  my  inquiry,  in  which  I  shall 
deal  briefly  with  the  relations  of  balance 
to  physical  science,  and  pass  promptly  to 
the  larger  question,  the  relation  of  com- 
pensation to  human  affairs. 


[     8     ] 


I 


II 

Equilibrium,  in  the  Sense  of  Actual  Rest,  is  Un- 
known —  Nature  is  a  State  of  Ceaseless  Motion, 
regulated  by  Balance. 

WHY  do  I  use  the  word  balance 
instead  of  equilibrium?  Is  not 
equilibrium  more  accurate  than 
balance?  We  observe  much  of  stability, 
poise  and  equivalence  in  and  about  us, 
which  we  call  equilibrium.  But  we  have 
not  observed  -perfect  equilibrium.  The 
word  perfect  is  often  misused.  Nor  have 
the  physicists,  with  their  finest  balances 
and  instruments  of  precision,  found  per- 
fect equilibrium.  They  have  invented 
scales  which,  placed  in  a  vacuum,  isolated 
as  far  as  possible  from  external  disturb- 
ance, weigh  with  remarkable  fineness. 
But  they  have  invented  no  scales  and  dis- 
covered no  conditions  which  enable  them 
to  weigh  with  infinite  fineness.  The  in- 
[     9     ] 


BALANCE 

linite  eludes  us.  If  they  should  improve 
their  balances  so  that  they  may  weigh  one 
of  the  motes  which  we  see  in  a  sunbeam, 
still  they  would  not  reach  perfect  equi- 
librium. Thev  must  weigh  a  millionth  of 
the  mote  and  a  millionth  of  that  millionth, 
and  so  on  to  infinity,  the  unreachable. 

The  problem  of  perfect  equilibrium  faces 
infinite  perturbations  on  all  sides.  There 
is  no'  perfect  vacuum  for  the  scales.  Our 
government  at  Washington  preserves  our 
standard  measures  in  an  even  temperature. 
The  evenness  of  temperature  can  be  main- 
tained to  one  degree,  perhaps  to  the  hun- 
dredth of  a  degree  or  to  the  thousandth, 
but  not  to  the  millionth  or  to  infinite  fine- 
ness. 

Moreover,  the  maintenance  of  a  perfect 
equilibrium  would  be  in  conflict  with  the 
scientific  assumption  that  motion  is  cease- 
less. Perfect  equilibrium  maintained  would 
be  perfect  rest,  that  which  exists  nowhere, 
according  to  the  theory  of  the  continuity 
[     "o    ] 


1 


1 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

of  motion  and  the  persistence  of  force. 
Well  it  is  with  us  and  with  the  world  that 
perfect  rest  does  not  exist!  If  the  blood 
in  my  body  should  stand  at  perfect  equi- 
librium for  a  moment,  I  would  die.  For 
motion  is  life;  its  cessation  would  be  ex- 
tinction. 

Equilibrium  may  be  compared  with  the 
present  in  time,  which,  strictly  speaking, 
is  that  point  in  which  the  past  and  future 
meet  —  a  point  which  is  really  impercep- 
tible, as  the  reader  will  realize  if  he  will 
pause  and  try  to  hold  or  catch  it.  It  is 
gone  before  we  can  grasp  it;  it  is  swifter 
than  the  thought  which  would  compre- 
hend it. 

As  the  present  is  a  fact  in  time,  though 
elusive,  so  we  may  assume  that  two 
weights,  nearly  equal,  swinging  in  a  bal- 
ance, will  pass  and  repass  the  point  of 
equilibrium,  even  of  perfect  equilibrium, 
with  each  alternate  movement  of  the  arms 
of  the  balance.  As  the  present  is  a  point 
[     ''     ] 


BALANCE 

which  we  gain  only  to  lose  it,  so  equi- 
hbrium  is  a  point  or  line  which  mo- 
tion crosses  and  recrosses  without  resting 
upon  it. 

When  scientific  men  have  occasion  to 
speak  of  equilibrium  with  exactitude,  they 
use  the  qualifying  term  "approximate," 
meaning  thereby  relative  or  practical  equi- 
librium, nearness  to  perfect  equilibrium,  a 
good  state  of  balance.  And  this  is  what  we 
find  —  a  good  state  of  balance  —  in  Na- 
ture, notwithstanding  her  ceaseless  motion 
and  transformations,  some  transformations 
being  slow,  requiring  millions  of  years, 
some  as  swift  as  the  transformation  of  the 
future  into  the  past,  some  open  to  our  sight, 
some  imperceptible,  the  greatest  being 
sometimes  the  least  perceptible  to  our 
senses,  as  is  the  motion  of  the  earth  in  its 
ceaseless  journey  around  the  sun  at  the  rate 
of  eighteen  miles  a  second,  one  thousand 
and  eighty  miles  a  minute  —  as  if  one 
should  fly  from  New  York  to  Yonkers  in 
[     '^    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

one  second,  to  Albany  in  ten  seconds,  to 
Buffalo  in  thirty  seconds,  to  Chicago  in  one 
minute,  to  San  Francisco  in  three  minutes 
—  one  thousand  times  faster  than  an  ex- 
press train,  fifty  times  the  speed  of  a  rifle- 
bullet.  We  are  disturbed  often  by  our  own 
little  projects,  inventions  and  affairs,  but 
we  are  not  fearful  that  the  bulky  earth  will 
come  to  harm  in  its  mad  course,  nor  would 
we  know  that  it  moves  at  such  speed,  or 
that  it  moves  at  all,  if  the  astronomers  had 
not  demonstrated  the  fact.  Nor  does  Her- 
schel's  discovery  that  the  solar  system  is 
moving  at  the  rate  of  about  twenty  thou- 
sand miles  an  hour  toward  the  constella- 
tion Lyra  disturb  us,  nor  do  we  worry  over 
the  apparently  inevitable  collision  to  follow 
this  movement,  for  the  astronomers  assure 
us  that  that  danger  is  remote,  and  that  it 
will  come,  if  it  comes  at  all,  long  after  this 
earth  has  ceased  to  be  habitable.  We  are 
persuaded  that  the  astronomers  have  dis- 
covered regularity  and  precision  in  the 
[     '3    ] 


BALANCE 

movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  that 
their  forecasts  of  these  movements  are 
trustworthy,  and  that  Nature,  in  the  large, 
in  her  greater  and  grander  manifestations, 
is  ruled  by  order. 


[     H     ] 


I 


Ill 

The  Scientific  Interpretations  of  Nature  point  to 
the  Single  Interpretation,  that  Balance  rules  the 
World  — "  To  Every  Action  there  is  an  Equal 
Reaction,"  is  the  Supreme  Statement. 

MODERN    science    accepts    with 
practical  unanimity  eight  inter- 
pretations of  the  system  of  Na- 
ture, which  are  recognized  usually  as  fun- 
damental :  — 

I.    To  every  action    there  is  an  equal 
and  opposite  reaction. 

"  If  fire  doth  heate  water,  the  water  re- 
actethagaine  .  .  .  upon  the  lire,  and  cooleth 
it,"  says  Sir  K.  Digby  (a.  d.  1644).  The 
wagon  pulls  against  the  horse  with  the 
same  strain  that  the  horse  pulls  against  the 
wagon.  The  knapsack  exacts  from  the  sol- 
dier who  carries  it  an  expenditure  of  force 
equal  to  its  weight.  Let  me  strike  a  stone 
wall  with  a  gloved  fist,  and  it  will  give 
[     >5    ] 


BALANCE 

back  a  gloved  blow  in  response.  The  wall 
will  be  gloved,  even  as  my  fist  is  gloved, 
at  the  point  of  contact.  Let  me  strike  hard 
with  bare  knuckles,  and  I  shall  be  con- 
vinced that  Nature  gives  even  to  senseless 
things  some  powers  of  resistance,  of  de- 
fense, even  of  resentment.  If  I  should  be 
thrown  upon  the  stone  wall  by  accident, 
still  the  wall  will  return  the  blow  with 
equal  force.  Nature's  ways  arc  exact  — 
strain  for  strain,  blow  for  blow  —  with  no 
allowance  for  intention. 

"To  every  action  there  is  an  equal  and 
opposite  reaction,"  is  Newton's  Third  Law 
of  Motion,  which  is  accepted  as  the  fun- 
damental axiom  of  physics.  In  this  law 
Newton  has  expressed  also,  I  believe,  the 
fundamental  law  of  Nature  —  that  action 
and  reaction  are  ceaseless,  equivalent  and 
compensatory. 

2.  That  effects  folloiv  causes  in  un- 
broke?i  succession. 

Strictly  speaking,  the  axiom  of  causa- 
[     '6    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

tion  is  only  another  expression  of  the  axiom 
"  that  reaction  equals  action."  Effects  are 
the  consequences  of  causes,  the  reactions 
from  causes,  the  equivalents  of  causes. 

3.  Gravitation  —  that  every  two  bodies 
or  'portions  of  matter  in  the  universe 
attract  each  other  with  a  force  propor- 
tional directly  to  the  quantity  of  matter 
they  contain  and  inversely  to  the  squares 
of  their  distances. 

Gravitation,  if  considered  as  a  force  of 
attraction  only,  is  a  force  which  balances 
its  opposite,  repulsion.  The  attraction  of 
the  sun  balances  the  momentum  which 
would  otherwise  project  the  earth  on  a 
straight  line  into  space.  This  balance  holds 
the  earth  steadily  in  its  course  around  the 
sun.  Opposite  forces  of  attraction  and  re- 
pulsion, centripetence  and  centrifugence, 
exist  in  the  world  in  its  greatest  and  small- 
est parts,  alike  in  constellations  and  in 
atoms.  Science  is  compelled  to  recognize 
repulsion  as  being  as  universal  as  attrac- 
[     '7    ] 


BALANCE 

tion.  To  account  for  these  contrary  forces 
has  so  far  baffled  investigation,  Newton's 
great  discovery  accounting  only  in  part. 
Science  knows  only  this  —  that  these 
forces  exist;  that  they  meet,  offset,  neu- 
tralize and  regulate  each  other,  sometimes 
mildly  or  imperceptibl}-,  sometimes  vio- 
lently and  with  fearful  convulsions,  and 
that  in  their  influences,  contacts,  struggles 
and  wars  they  hold  all  things  in  balance. 

4.  Evolution  —  including  its  opposite, 
devolution  or  dissolution  —  that  the  fit 
advance  and  the  unfit  decline^  advajice- 
ment  depe7iding  upon  adaptability,  and 
decline  upon  inadaptability,  to  environ- 
ment. 

There  are  seeds  that  will  grow  in  a  sand- 
bank, others  must  have  loam;  some  will 
grow  only  on  mountain  heights,  others  on 
low  levels;  some  in  low  temperatures, 
others  in  high;  some  organisms  can  live 
only  in  the  water,  others  die  in  the  water; 
some  are  self  protected  against  the  ele- 
[     18    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


ments,  others  must  be  housed  and  clothed 
—  and  so  on  through  numberless  varia- 
tions in  requirements.  Evolution  is  the 
balancing  of  organisms  with  their  sur- 
rounding conditions,  influences  and  forces. 
Those  that  are  fit  —  that  is,  in  harmony 
with  their  environment  —  will  survive; 
those  that  are  unfit  will  fail.  As  Herbert 
Spencer  says :  — 

"  Evolution  under  all  its  aspects,  general  and  spe- 
cial, is  an  advance  towards  equilibrium.  We  have 
seen  that  the  theoretical  limit  towards  which  the 
integration  and  differentiation  of  every  aggregate 
advances,  is  a  state  of  balance  between  all  the  forces  to 
which  its  parts  are  subject,  and  the  forces  which  its 
parts  oppose  to  them.''  —  Biology,  ii.  537. 

5.  That  matte?'  is  indestructible. 

6.  That  force  is  persistent  and  inde- 
structible. 

Mr.  Spencer  has  said  (First  Principles, 

p.  182)  that  "  the  verification  of  the  truth 

that  matter   is   indestructible "  rests   only 

upon  "  a  tacit  assumption  of  it."    "  A  tacit 

[     19    ] 


BALANCE 


assumption,"  with  no  rational  basis  for  the 
assumption,  would  be  no  verification;  it 
would  be  a  guess.  The  truth  that  matter 
and  force  are  indestructible  rests  upon  a 
better  ground  than  an  assumption;  it  is 
the  inevitable  corollary  of  the  truth,  "  To 
every  action  there  is  an  equal  and  contrary 
reaction.-'  If  there  could  be  a  single  case 
in  which  matter  and  force  are  annihilated, 
then  Newton's  axiom  would  be  untrue, 
for,  in  that  case,  reaction  would  fail  to  fol- 
low action.  The  turning  of  something  into 
nothing,  by  the  destruction  of  matter  or 
force,  would  break  the  succession  of  cause 
and  efTect,  of  action  and  reaction ;  and  con- 
sequently the  theories  of  the  indestructi- 
bility of  matter  and  of  force  have  their 
roots  in  Newton's  axiom,  in  the  great  law 
of  consequences,  of  equivalence,  of  com- 
pensation, of  balance. 

7.  That  motion  is  ceaseless^  and  con- 
sequently that  tra?isformation  is  contin- 
uous. 

[    20    ] 


I 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

Here  we  have  confirmation  of  the  con- 
clusion that  the  theories  of  the  indestruc- 
tibility of  matter  and  of  force  rest  upon 
Newton's  axiom.  If  motion  should  cease, 
then  there  could  be  no  reaction  for  "  every 
action."  The  modern  theories  of  the  per- 
sistence of  matter  and  force,  and  of  the 
ceaselessness  of  motion,  are  extensions,  in- 
terpretations and  necessary  consequences 
of  the  fundamental  truth  that  *•'  every  ac- 
tion "  is  followed  by  a  reaction. 

8.  The  laws  and  ways  oj"  Nature  are 
uniform  and  harmonious. 

Uniform  means  of  one  form,  agreement, 
consistency.  Harmony  means  concord,  the 
just  adaptation  of  parts  to  each  other, 
agreement  also,  unison.  We  observe  this 
uniformit}',  harmony  and  agreement  to  a 
marked  degree  in  the  fundamental  expla- 
nations of  Nature  which  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. They  teach  us  that  there  is  nei- 
ther halt  nor  break  in  Nature's  processes; 
that  motion  is  ceaseless, transformation  con- 

[       2,        ] 


BALANCE 

tinuous,  force  persistent,  matter  indestruc- 
tible; that  in  these  ceaseless  transforma- 
tions repulsion  balances  attraction,  effects 
balance  causes  —  in  short,  that  reaction 
equals  action,  that  balance  attends  and 
controls  transformation. 

We  cannot  assume  uniformity  and  har- 
mony without  also  assuming-  a  ground  of 
uniformity  and  harmony.  What  is  Nature's 
one  form,  or  rule,  or  way,  or  law,  or  prin- 
ciple, upon  which  her  uniformities  and 
harmonies  rest?  Of  the  fundamental  ex- 
planations of  science,  one  —  Newton's  law 
of  ceaseless  equivalence  and  compensa- 
tion, "  To  every  action  there  is  an  equal 
and  opposite  reaction"  —  is  the  imperious 
and  supreme  statement,  the  others  being 
subsidiary  or  complementary  to  it,  or  ex- 
planatory of  it. 

The  fundamental  conceptions  of  science 

point   distinctly  and   with   emphasis   to  a 

higher    and    single    generalization  —  t/iat 

Balance  rules  the  world.    Balance  is  the 

[    ^^     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

key  that  unlocks  them,  the  word  that  ex- 
plains them,  the  principle  that  harmonizes 
them. 

A  man  out  of  balance  falls;  a  globe  out 
of  balance  would  be  destroyed.  If  the  uni- 
verse were  out  of  balance,  it  would  pre- 
sent a  spectacle  of  anarchy  and  chaos. 
As  the  Brooklyn  bridge  could  not  support 
itself  without  cables  and  piers,  so  no  or- 
ganism could  exist  without  balance.  Bal- 
ance is  of  necessity  the  regulating  and 
saving  force  in  Nature,  since  a  force  supe- 
rior and  antagonistic  to  balance  —  if  such 
could  exist  —  would  be  a  destroyer.  The 
supremacy  of  balance  is  that  which  is, 
must  be,  and  could  not  be  otherwise;  that 
without  which  no  order  could  exist. 


[    ^3     ] 


IV 

No  Force  works  aimlessly  or  wanders  away  into 
Extinction  —  Balance  is  Supreme  in  the  Small,  as 
well  as  in  the  Great,  Processes  of  Nature  —  Every 
Physical  Transformation  includes  Exact  Equiva- 
lence and  Compensation. 

WITHOUT  the  axiom  that  ac- 
tion and  reaction  are  equal  and 
opposite,  astronomy  could  not 
make  its  exact  predictions,"  says  Spencer 
(First  Principles,  p.  193).  As  astronomy 
discerns  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  bal- 
ance in  the  remotest  regions  accessible  to 
human  vision,  and  in  the  most  tremendous 
phenomena,  so  chemistry  discovers  the 
same  accurate  adjustments  among  the 
smallest  particles  of  matter  of  which  we 
have  any  knowledge. 

Lavoisier  is  called  the  founder  of  mod- 
ern chemistry.    That  which  distinguishes 
his  work  from  the  work  of  his  predeces- 
[     M     ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

sors  is  the  more  accurate  measurement  of 
the  materials  and  forces  which  are  involved 
in  chemical  changes,  and  a  more  orderly 
view  of  these  phenomena  as  perfectly  bal- 
anced interactions.  His  work  destroyed 
the  theory  of  "  phlogiston,"  which  was  in- 
consistent with  natural  balance  because  it 
introduced  a  mystic  agent  —  "  phlogiston, 
the  spirit  of  fire  "  —  having  unnatural  prop- 
erties contradictory  of  the  law  of  action 
and  reaction. 

The  problem  of  oxidation  puzzled  chem- 
ists in  Lavoisier's  day.  The  rapid  action 
of  fire  and  the  slow  rusting  of  a  metal 
were  seen  to  be  closely  akin,  but  the  cause 
was  elusive.  It  was  necessary  to  learn  that 
the  essential  of  both  processes  is  oxygen, 
coming  from  the  air  or  some  other  source; 
and  that  there  is  no  actual  loss  or  gain  in 
the  process  of  oxidation.  This  truth  led 
to  the  broader  knowledge  that,  in  every 
chemical  transformation,  whatever  disap- 
pears in  one  form,  reappears  in  another; 
[    ^5     ] 


BALANCE 

that  every  manifestation  of  force  is  due 
to  a  disturbance  of  balance  among  the 
minute,  invisible  particles  which  we  call 
atoms;  that  no  force  works  aimlessly  or 
wanders  away  into  extinction. 

The  most  recent  discoveries  in  thermo- 
chemistry, in  electro-chemistry,  in  the 
phenomena  of  solution,  and  in  the  realm 
of  molecular  structure,  depend  upon  the 
same  principle:  that  any  apparent  super- 
abundance or  deficiency  indicates  error, 
and  that  the  truth  will  always  reveal  a  per- 
fect correspondence,  equivalence,  and  rec- 
titude of  law. 

The  history  of  chemical  experimentation 
is  full  of  the  most  perfect  illustrations  of 
the  principle  of  equivalence,  which  tinds 
its  simplest  expression  in  the  universal 
practice  of  chemists  in  writing  down  every 
chemical  reaction  as  an  equation:  So  much 
of  this  plus  so  much  of  that  equals  the 
result. 

We  shall  search  in  vain  for  an}-  demon- 
[    26    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


strated  truth  concerning  the  system  of  Na- 
ture, for  any  law,  rule  or  axiom  of  physics, 
which  does  not  rest  fundamentally  upon 
the  equivalence  of  action  and  reaction,  of 
cause  and  effect.  "  The  straight  line  joining 
the  sun  and  planet  must  pass  over  equal 
areas  in  equal  times,"  is  Kepler's  law.  "At 
any  point  in  a  fluid  at  rest  the  pressure  is 
equal  in  all  directions,"  is  Pascal's  prin- 
ciple. "A  body  immersed  in  a  fluid  is 
buoyed  up  by  a  force  equal  to  the  weight 
of  the  fluid  displaced,"  is  the  principle  of 
Archimedes.  "  The  angles  of  incidence 
and  reflection  are  in  the  same  plane,  and 
are  equal,"  is  the  law  of  reflection.  "  The 
reciprocal  of  the  principal  focal  length  is 
equal  to  the  sum  of  the  reciprocals  of  any 
two  conjugate  focal  lengths,"  is  the  law  of 
converging  lenses.  "  The  current  is  equal 
to  the  electro-motive  force  divided  by  the 
resistance,"  is  Ohm's  law.  "  The  disap- 
pearance of  a  definite  amount  of  mechanical 
energy  is  accompanied  by  the  production 
[     ^7     ] 


BALANCE 

of  an  equivalent  amount  of  heat,"  is  Joule's 
principle.  Observe  how  perfectly  these 
and  the  other  principles  and  laws  of  ph3's- 
ics  agree  with  Newton's  law  of  motion  : 
"  To  every  action  there  is  an  equal  Sind  op- 
posite reaction." 

The  universality  of  equivalence  is 
broadly  expressed  in  the  law  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy:  "When  one  form  of 
energy  disappears,  its  exact  equivalent 
in  another  J^orm  ahvays  takes  its  placeP 
This  law,  accepted  by  modern  science, 
leaves  no  ground  for  the  assumption  that 
there  can  be  a  failure  of  equivalence  in 
motion  or  transformation. 

Can  we  say  that  the  equivalents  which 
return  persistently  in  motion  and  transfor- 
mation are  compensatory  ?  Yes;  the  re- 
turn of  an  exact  equivalent  is  exact  com- 
pensation. Heat  is  the  compensation  for 
the  fuel  that  produces  it;  electricity  is  the 
compensation  for  the  energy  that  is  trans- 
formed into  it;  one  molecule  of  water  is 

[     ^8     ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

the  compensation  for  two  atoms  of  hydro- 
gen and  one  atom  of  oxygen.  A  definite 
amount  of  matter  or  force  pays  for  exactly 
the  same  amount  in  another  form.  That 
which  disappears  and  that  which  succeeds 
are  mutually  compensatory.  Fuel  pays  for 
heat,  and  heat  pays  for  fuel.  The  account 
balances  perfectly.  Nature  has  no  profit 
and  loss  account,  no  bad  debts,  no  failures 
in  compensation. 

The  assumption  that  anything  can  exist 
in  the  physical  world  without  exact  com- 
pensation appeals  to  the  scorn  alike  of 
science  and  of  common  sense.  Our  patent 
office  in  Washington  refuses  to  consider 
devices  to  produce  perpetual  motion,  not 
because  that  office  would  place  an  arbi- 
trary limit  on  the  possibilities  of  mechan- 
ical invention,  but  because  effect  without 
cause,  power  without  compensation,  is  im- 
possible. 

We  shall  be  justified  in  the  conclusion 
that  the  principle  of  balance  presides  over 
[    ^9    ] 


BALANCE 

the  processes  of  Nature  in  the  small  as 
well  as  in  the  large  —  alike  in  atoms,  sat- 
ellites and  suns  —  and  that  ever}-  trans- 
formation of  matter  and  force,  great  or 
insignificant,  includes  the  return  of  exact 
equivalents  and  compensation. 


[    30    ] 


V 


Man's  Part  in  Nature  —  Progress  by  Antagonism  — 
Nature's  Process  is  by  Test  and  Trial,  by  unfold- 
ing, changing,  ripping  up,  undoing  and  redoing  — 
Error  dies  in  the  Struggle. 


A 


PART  from  the  world  of  physics, 
and  yet  inextricably  entangled 
with  the  physical,  is  a  realm  in 
which  exist  thought,  hope,  imagination, 
reason,  comedy,  pathos,  tragedy,  friend- 
ship and  love,  revenge  and  hate,  honor 
and  humiliation,  right  and  wrong,  pleasure 
and  laughter,  pain,  agony  and  despair;  a 
world  which  is  included  in  Nature,  the 
same  as  mineral  and  vegetable,  matter  and 
motion,  atom  and  sun.  The  thought,  hopes, 
ideals  and  fate  of  man  belong  as  much  to 
Nature  as  wood,  muck,  coal  or  stone. 

The    conscious     part    of     man  —  that 
which  sees,  feels   and  comprehends  —  is 
of  higher   interest   and    importance   than 
[     31     ] 


BALANCE 


an3thing  purely  ph3sical.  Newton  com- 
prehended gravitation,  but  gravitation 
could  not  comprehend  Newton.  Priestley 
discovered  oxygen,  but  oxygen  never  dis- 
covered Priestley.  The  astronomers  have 
seen  far-off  stars,  but  no  star  will  ever 
see  an  astronomer.  Our  great  laws  and 
principles,  our  immensities,  our  planets 
and  suns  —  they  are  senseless,  they  know 
nothing,  see  nothing,  feel  nothing.  But 
man,  frail,  weak  and  defective  though  he 
be,  can  see,  feel  and  comprehend. 

So  far  as  man  is  physical,  we  know 
that  he  is  subject  to  the  same  laws  that 
control  other  manifestations  of  matter  and 
force.  But  what  of  the  conscious  part 
of  man?  Is  it  subject  to  the  same  laws 
of  action  and  reaction,  cause  and  effect, 
equivalence  and  compensation,  that  rule 
in  the  physical  world?  Is  there  one  law 
for  physical  interaction,  and  a  different 
law,  or  no  law,  for  intellectual  and  moral 
interactions?  Does  compensation  exist  for 
[    32    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

matter  and  force  only,  or  does  it  exist  also 
for  the  human  soul  ? 

The  polarities  of  Nature,  and  the  inter- 
actions between  them,  are  quite  as  pro- 
nounced in  human  life  as  in  physics;  in- 
deed, the  polarities  extend  beyond  the 
physical  and  human  into  the  abstract,  as 
in  odd  and  even  numbers.  The  polarities 
are  sometimes  antagonistic,  sometimes  re- 
ciprocal, and  always,  I  believe,  mutually 
corrective. 

"  An  inevitable  dualism  bisects  Nature," 
says  Emerson,  "  so  that  each  thing  is  a 
half  and  suggests  another  thing  to  make 
it  whole  —  as,  spirit,  matter;  man,  woman; 
odd,  even;  subjective,  objective;  in,  out; 
upper,  under;  motion,  rest;  yea,  nay.  .  .  . 
The  same  dualism  underlies  the  nature 
and  condition  of  man." 

Plato  perceived  the  same  law  of  polar- 
ity  in    "  the    generation  of    contraries,  of 
death  out  of  life,  and  life  out  of  death,  of 
recomposition  and  decomposition." 
[     33     ] 


BALANCE 

Man  faces  on  all  sides  the  polarities  of 
Nature,  some  of  which  —  such  as  wet  and 
dry,  hot  and  cold,  work  and  rest,  pleasure 
and  pain  —  were  as  apparent  in  savagery 
as  they  are  in  civilization.  With  increas- 
ing knowledge  man  perceives  more  and 
more  of  these  dualities  and  invents  new 
words  to  express  them.  Roget  gives,  in 
his  "  Thesaurus,"  more  than  twelve  thou- 
sand words  of  opposite  meaning.  ''  There 
exist  comparatively  few  words  of  a  gen- 
eral character  to  which  no  correlative  term, 
either  of  negation  or  of  opposition,  can  be 
assigned,"  sa3's  Roget. 

Hegel  held  the  theory  of  "  progress  by 
antagonism  "  —  "  that  forms  which  are  op- 
posed are  really  complementary  or  neces- 
sary to  each  other,  and  their  conflict  is 
limited  by  the  unity  which  they  express 
and  which  ultimately  must  subordinate 
them  all  to  itself." 

Sometimes  we  recognize  that  a  stranger 
is  a  teacher  or  a  minister  by  the  tone  of 
[     34     ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

his  voice.  The  peculiarity  in  the  voice  is 
partly,  but  not  wholly,  oratorical.  It  is  the 
voice  of  the  orator  who  expects  no  answer, 
who  anticipates  that  no  one  will  "  talk 
back"  on  equal  terms  —  the  voice  undis- 
ciplined by  antagonism.  We  may  observe 
also  the  absence  of  the  discipline  of  an- 
tagonism in  the  voices  and  manners  of 
children,  and  of  those  who  have  too  much 
or  too  little  self  assertion  —  in  the  mean 
and  the  haughty,  the  servile  and  the  arro- 
gant. The  countryman  adjusts  himself 
with  some  trouble  to  the  ways  of  the  city, 
and  the  city  man  to  the  ways  of  the  farm 
or  forest,  because  these  changes  bring  new 
antagonisms.  We  meet  new  antagonisms 
with  every  change  from  infancy  to  the 
grave  —  in  learning  to  walk  and  to  care  for 
ourselves;  in  going  first  to  school;  with 
each  new  study;  in  the  cares,  duties  and 
responsibilities  which  come  with  maturity; 
in  heat  and  cold,  dust  and  rain;  in  conta- 
gions; in  the  numberless  enemies  which 
[     35     ] 


BALANCE 


lurk  in  the  water  we  drink  and  in  the  air 
we  breathe;  in  old  age,  '"that  malady 
which  no  physician  has  ever  cured." 

Life  is  tilled  with  issues  —  moral,  intel- 
lectual, political,  social,  philosophical, 
commercial,  physical  —  some  being  grave 
and  others  trivial.  The  mind  of  a  man 
is  a  field  of  battle  in  which  contending 
ideas,  forces  and  interests  meet  and  clash, 
each  one  seeking  for  the  weak  spots  in  the 
other.  A  thought  or  proposal  arouses  an- 
tagonistic thoughts  and  considerations, 
and  a  school  of  thought  begets  antagonis- 
tic schools.  Monotheism  rises  up  against 
polytheism,  heterodoxy  against  orthodoxy, 
rationalism  against  superstition,  epicu- 
reanism against  stoicism,  realism  against 
idealism,  monism  against  dualism,  will 
against  fatalism,  tolerance  against  intoler- 
ance, equality  against  privilege,  radicalism 
against  conservatism,  trades  unions  against 
employers,  farmers  against  middlemen, 
middlemen  against  combinations,  combina- 
[    36    ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

tions  against  competition.  Our  people  are 
in  perpetual  antagonism  concerning  na- 
tional, state  or  local  policies.  In  these  con- 
flicts, as  in  all  other  conflicts,  the  stronger 
is  victorious.  Balance  forbids  a  victory 
of  weakness  over  strength.  By  strength  I 
mean  power,  whether  it  be  mental  or  phys- 
ical, honest  or  base.  A  man  is  stronger 
than  a  horse  through  intelligence;  one 
man  rules  a  thousand  or  a  million  men 
through  superior  will,  courage,  wisdom  or 
devotion,  or  by  taking  advantage  of  their 
ignorance,  fanaticism  or  superstition.  In 
our  political  contests  the  victory  goes  with 
the  majority,  which  may  be  in  accordance 
with  right,  or  may  be  moved  by  misunder- 
standing or  passion.  The  victory  of  wrong 
will  in  time  produce  its  reaction,  which 
will  be  favorable  to  right.  "When  bad 
becomes  bad  enough,  then  right  returns." 
"Nothing  is  settled  until  it  is  settled 
right." 

The  history  of  civilization  is  the  history 
[     37     ] 


BALANCE 

of  the  settlement  of  issues  in  accordance 
with  their  merits,  of  numberless  victories 
of  tolerance  over  intolerance,  of  reason 
over  ignorance,  of  right  over  wrong.  Nor 
is  it  true,  as  is  sometimes  assumed,  that 
there  has  been  no  philosophical  progress. 
The  old  contest  between  stoic  and  epicu- 
rean —  in  which  some  of  the  greatest 
minds  of  antiquity  participated  for  five  or 
six  centuries  —  has  been  definitely  settled. 
The  verdict  is  expressed  in  the  meaning 
which  the  two  words  have  acquired  in  our 
language.  The  word  stoic  is  applied  to  the 
strong,  emotionless,  self  denying,  uncon- 
querable; epicurean  to  the  fastidious,  lux- 
urious, self  indulgent,  weak.  And  modern 
thought  recognizes  that,  while  the  two 
words  represent  opposite  tendencies  in  hu- 
man nature  —  one  of  which  is  in  the  main 
noble  and  the  other  in  the  main  ignoble 
—  neither  has  the  substance  upon  which 
to  build  a  philosophy  of  life.  Nor  is  it 
likely  that  a  philosophy  of  life  can  be  built 
[     38    ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

upon  one  of  two  antagonistic  ideas  or  prin- 
ciples. 

The  meaning  taken  on  by  our  words 
"cynic"  and  "sophist" also  records  the  final 
verdict  concerning  the  merits  of  two  an- 
cient schools  of  philosophy.  Antisthenes, 
Diogenes  and  Menippus,  Protagoras,  Gor- 
gias  and  Hippias  —  all  important  figures 
in  their  time  — ■  were  cynics  or  sophists, 
but  common  sense  has  disposed  of  their 
errors.  Experience  indicates  that  the 
theories  which  belittle  human  nature,  and 
becloud  the  issues  between  right  and 
wrong,  will  ultimately  become  obnoxious 
—  that  the  very  terms  in  which  they  are 
expressed  will  grow  into  words  of  ill 
meaning. 

The  failure  to  settle  intellectual  conflicts 
is  not  due  so  much  to  the  misunderstand- 
ing of  principles  as  to  the  misunderstanding 
of  facts.  No  one  doubts  that  rationalism  is 
right  and  superstition  wrong,  but  men  dis- 
agree concerning  what  is  rational  and  what 
[     39     ] 


BALANCE 

is  superstitious.  Wrong  is  not  defended 
as  7i'?'0?2g;  but  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
right.  The  struggle  of  thought  is  to  dis- 
tinguish right  from  wrong. 

In  many  issues  there  is  truth  on  both 
sides,  and  a  settlement  is  delayed  by  the 
difficulty  in  determining  the  true  bal- 
ance. Sometimes  the  truth  on  one  side  is 
perfectly  balanced  by  the  truth  on  the 
other  side,  and  it  turns  out  that  there  is 
no  issue,  as  in  the  old  conflict  between 
inductive  and  deductive  reasoning.  We 
now  know  that  each  process  is  sound 
when  correctly  used,  and  that  both  pro- 
cesses are  essential  in  reasoning.  There 
are  no  particulars  that -do  not  harmonize 
with  a  generalization,  and  there  is  no  gen- 
eralization that  does  not  agree  with  its 
underlying  facts. 

Life  is  a  struggle.    Wars  end,  but  the 

war    of    the    race  —  the    antagonism    of 

thought,  the  strife  between  men,  between 

man  and  the  forces  external  to  him,  within 

[    40    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

the  soul  of  the  individual  —  ends  not  save 
it  be  with  extinction. 

Error  gains  many  a  temporary  triumph, 
but  the  final  victory  is  with  truth.  There 
is  substance  in  truth  that  in  the  last  bal- 
ance outweighs  error. 

Nature's  process  is  by  test  and  trial,  by 
unfolding,  changing,  ripping  up,  undoing, 
redoing.  By  contrast  and  conflict  she  tries 
sincerity  and  treachery,  honor  and  dis- 
honor, fitness  and  unfitness,  courage  and 
cowardice,  truth  and  error.  The  conflict 
of  ideas  —  between  social  and  political 
systems,  and  between  creeds  and  philoso- 
phies —  is  as  rude  as  the  conflict  between 
the  sea  and  land.  Error  dies  in  the  struggle. 

The  fact,  however,  that  the  state  of 
Nature  is  dualistic  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  state 
of  conflict  or  alternation,  should  not  be 
accepted  as  carrying  the  conclusion  that 
Nature  is  dualistic  in  a  fundamental  sense. 

The  polarities  of  Nature  would,  if  con- 
sidered alone,  represent  Nature  as  a  state 
[     4'     ] 


BALANCE 

of  confusion  and  anarchy.  Since,  how- 
ever, order  reigns  in  the  midst  of  the  con- 
fusion, we  must  accept  the  alternations 
and  conflicts  of  Nature  as  being  compen- 
satory, and  not  as  anarchic;  as  being  un- 
der the  control  of  law  which,  in  its  last 
analysis,  is  single  —  monistic,  not  dualistic 
—  and  master  of  all  other  forces,  even  of 
gravitation.  Water,  impelled  by  gravita- 
tion, falls  to  the  earth,  runs  through  the 
rivulets,  brooks  and  rivers  to  the  sea. 
But  it  will  ascend  again  to  the  clouds, 
again  refresh  the  land,  again  return  to  the 
clouds,  continuing  alternately  to  3'ield  to 
and  then  to  elude  the  gravitation  of  the 
earth.  "  What  we  call  gravitation  and  fancy 
ultimate  is  one  fork  of  a  mightier  stream 
for  which  we  have  yet  no  name,"  says 
Emerson.  I  venture  to  suggest  that  the 
"  mightier  stream  "  is  named  Balance. 


[    42     ] 


VI 

Action  and  Reaction  in  Human  Affairs  —  From 
Paganism  to  Christianity,  to  Asceticism,  to  the 
Crusades,  to  Exploration  and  Commerce  —  Minor 
Interactions  —  Reaction  from  Words  and  Tones, 
Speeches  and  Thoughts. 

ERROR  and  evil  are  located  in  defi- 
ciency or  excess.  Even  excess  in 
virtue  is  evil,  an  excess  of  humility 
being  abjectness;  of  courage,  rashness;  of 
prudence,  cowardice;  of  patience,  indif- 
ference; of  economy,  parsimony;  of  gen- 
erosity, waste;  of  deference,  obsequious- 
ness. And  so  also  an  excess  of  learning  is 
pedantry;  of  ease,  indolence;  of  comfort, 
self  indulgence;  of  zeal,  fanaticism.  Right 
and  justice  are  found  in  moderation,  in  the 
golden  mean  —  in  the  true  balance  —  be- 
tween overdoing  and  underdoing,  going  too 
fast  and  too  slow. 

Philosophical  history  deals  mainly  with 

[     43      ] 


BALANCE 

the  record  of  excess,  and  the  reactions 
from  excess,  in  human  affairs.  Observe 
how  Lecky  traces  the  cuhnination  of  the 
brutaHty  and  cruelty  of  Rome  to  the  glad- 
iatorial games,  in  which  the  spectacle  of 
men  tiijhtinor  to  the  death  in  the  arena  — 
where  it  is  said  that  more  than  one  hun- 
dred thousand  perished  —  delighted  vast 
audiences,  including  the  women  of  the 
first  city  in  the  civilized  world.  It  was  a 
monk,  Telemachus,  who  finally  rushed 
between  the  combatants,  and  "  his  blood 
was  the  last  that  stained  the  arena."  The 
immediate  reaction  from  cruelty  is  repug- 
nance, aversion,  detestation.  Disgust  for 
pagan  savagery  opened  the  way  for  Chris- 
tianity, the  religion  of  kindness,  humility, 
peace  and  fraternity  —  the  exact  opposite 
of  the  pride,  arrogance  and  ferocity  of  pagan 
Rome.  The  Christians  praised  peace,  con- 
demned war,  abolished  slavery,  founded 
the  first  hospitals,  and  sought  to  alleviate 
human  sorrow  and  suffering  with  zeal 
[     44     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

which  is  without  parallel.  One  extreme 
follows  another  in  human  affairs,  like  the 
swing  of  a  pendulum.  The  reaction  from 
excess  is  excess  in  an  opposite  direction. 
Excess  in  moral  reformations  takes  the 
form  often  of  fanaticism.  Christian  fanati- 
cism developed  in  time  a  monstrous  form 
of  asceticism,  glorified  the  hermit  life,  beg- 
gary, humiliation,  flagellation,  self  torture, 
the  neglect  of  cleanliness  and  the  laws  of 
self  preservation,  the  breaking  of  family 
ties,  and  other  forms  of  senseless  sacri- 
fice. Pagan  excess  led  to  the  sacrifice  of 
others  for  sport;  Christian  excess  to  the 
sacrifice  of  self  to  gain  the  favor  of  superhu- 
man powers.  The  hero  of  the  pagans  was 
Caesar,  who  had  risen  to  fame  on  the  corpses 
of  1,100,000  men.  The  hero  of  the  age  of 
asceticism  was  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  who 
bound  himself  with  ropes  to  putrefy  his 
flesh;  who,  it  is  said,  stood  on  one  leg  for 
a  year  and  sat  on  a  pillar  for  thirty  years 
bending  in  ceaseless  prayer.  And  what 
[     45     ] 


BALANCE 

should  we  expect  as  the  reaction  from  as- 
ceticism? Again  the  opposite  —  the  age  of 
chivalry  and  the  wars  of  the  Crusades.  The 
ascetics  had  condemned  war,  good  clothes 
and  the  love  of  women.  The  knights  of 
chivalry  rode  with  love  tokens  on  their 
breasts,  in  brilliant  apparel,  to  rescue  the 
tomb  of  Christ  from  the  Moslem.  In  the 
wars  of  the  Crusades  2,000,000  Christians 
perished. 

Through  the  Crusades  the  peoples  of 
Europe  became  better  acquainted  with 
one  another,  and  the  use  of  ships  was 
greatly  increased.  Consequently  the  reac- 
tion from  the  age  of  the  Crusades  was  the 
age  of  commerce,  and  out  of  commerce 
grew  exploration,  the  discovery  of  Amer- 
ica, the  mapping  of  the  globe.  Aversion  to 
the  intolerance  of  the  Middle  Ages  pro- 
duced the  tolerance  of  later  times.  A  sim- 
ple mechanical  contrivance,  the  printing 
press,  facilitated  the  liberation  of  thought. 
The  heroes  of  the  later  centuries  are  the 
[    46    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


discoverers,  such  as   Columbus,  Newton 
and  Darwin. 

Beneath  these  great  interactions  the  his- 
torian observes  minor  interactions,  cover- 
ing shorter  periods  in  the  affairs  of  nations 
and  communities,  as  in  France  when  the 
indifference  of  the  old  regime  to  the  rights 
of  man  led  to  the  period  of  liberty,  equal- 
ity and  fraternity,  and  the  excesses  of  the 
Revolution  to  the  horrors  of  the  guillotine. 
Dickens,  in  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities," 
says: 

"All  the  devouring  and  insatiate  monsters  im- 
agined since  imagination  could  record  itself  are  fused 
in  the  one  realization,  Guillotine.  And  yet  there  is 
not  in  France,  with  its  rich  variety  of  soil  and  climate, 
a  blade,  a  leaf,  a  root,  a  sprig,  a  peppercorn,  which 
will  grow  to  maturity  under  conditions  more  certain 
than  those  that  have  produced  this  horror.  Crush 
humanity  out  of  shape  once  more,  under  similar  ham- 
mers, and  it  will  twist  itself  into  the  same  tortured 
forms.  Sow  the  same  seed  of  rapacious  license  and 
oppression  over  again,  and  it  will  surely  yield  the 
same  fruit  according  to  its  kind. 

"  Six  tumbrils  roll  along  the  streets.    Change  these 
[     M     ] 


BALANCE 

back  again  to  what  they  were,  thou  powerful  en- 
chanter, Time,  and  they  shall  be  seen  to  be  the  car- 
riages of  absolute  monarchs,  the  equipages  of  feudal 
nobles,  the  toilettes  of  flaring  Jezebels,  the  churches 
that  are  not  my  Father's  house  but  dens  of  thieves, 
the  Ijuts  of  millions  of  starving  peasants  !  " 

The  atrocities  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion led  to  the  rise  of  the  empire,  and  the 
excesses  of  Napoleon  to  his  destruction. 
Victor  Hugo,  in  '••  Les  Miserables,"  says 
of  Bonaparte  at  Waterloo: 

**  Another  series  of  facts  was  preparing,  in  which 
Napoleon  had  no  longer  a  place  :  the  ill  will  of  events 
had  been  displayed  long  previously.  It  was  time  for 
this  vast  man  to  fall;  his  excessive  weight  in  human 
destiny  disturbed  the  balance.  This  individual  alone 
was  of  more  account  than  the  universal  group  :  such 
plethoras  of  human  vitality  concentrated  in  a  single 
head  —  the  world,  mounting  to  one  man's  brain  — 
would  be  mortal  to  civilization  if  they  endured.  The 
moment  had  arrived  for  the  incorruptible  supreme 
equity  to  reflect,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  principles 
and  elements  on  which  the  regular  gravitations  of 
the  moral  order  as  of  the  material  world  depend, 
complained.  Streaming  blood,  overcrowded  grave- 
[     48     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

yards,  mothers  in  tears,  are  formidable  pleaders. 
When  the  earth  is  suffering  from  an  excessive  burden, 
there  are  mysterious  groans  from  the  shadow,  which 
the  abyss  hears.  Napoleon  had  been  denounced  in 
infinitude,  and  his  fall  was  decided.  Waterloo  is  not 
a  battle,  but  a  transformation  of  the  universe." 

Flint,  in  his  "  Philosophy  of  History," 
says : 

"  History  always  participates  in  some  measure  of 
philosophy ;  for  events  are  always  connected  accord- 
ing to  some  real  or  ideal  principle,  either  of  efficient 
or  final  causation.  .  .  .  The  more  the  mind  of  the 
historian  is  awake  and  active,  the  more,  of  course, 
it  is  impelled  to  go  in  search  of  the  connection  be- 
tween causes  and  effects,  between  occurrences  and 
tendencies." 

The  best  chart  of  industrial  conditions  in 
past  years  in  the  United  States  is  the  chart 
of  immigration  —  the  coming  of  foreigners 
being  in  proportion  to  the  opportunities 
for  labor.  The  first  great  wave  of  immi- 
gration was  consequent  upon  the  period  of 
prosperity  which  began  in  1845,  and  which 
was  stimulated  later  by  the  gold  discov- 
[     49     ] 


BALANCE 


eries  of  California  and  the  beginning  of 
railroad  construction.  The  tide  of  immi- 
gration declined  with  the  panic  of  1857 
and  through  the  civil  war;  it  rose  after  the 
war,  declined  with  the  panic  of  1873,  rose 
by  leaps  and  bounds  with  the  prosperity 
which  began  in  1879,  declined  with  the 
business  depression  of  1883—86,  rose  again, 
declined  with  the  panic  of  1893,  and  rose 
to  the  highest  point  on  record  in  1903  as 
the  result  of  the  preceding  prosperity. 

We  recognize  the  consequences  of  busi- 
ness prosperity  in  other  and  numerous 
forms  —  in  contentment,  comfort,  satisfac- 
tion with  the  party  in  power,  improved 
wages,  increasing  luxury  and  happiness; 
while  the  results  of  declining  trade  are 
business  failures,  reduced  wages,  precari- 
ous employment,  discontent  with  social 
and  political  conditions,  want,  despair, 
suicide. 

The  influence  of  the  law  of  action  and 
reaction  can  be  traced  more  clearly  in 
[     so     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

those  everyday  human  affairs  which  come 
under  our  individual  observation  than  in 
the  greater  movements  of  mankind  which 
are  often  imperfectly  recorded.  We  act, 
and  are  acted  upon.  The  people  we  meet 
make  an  impression  on  us;  the  impres- 
sion may  be  for  the  moment  or  it  may 
last  through  life.  Bloom,  fragrance,  grace, 
harmony,  beauty,  majesty,  affect  us  agree- 
ably; deformity,  imbecility,  distress,  cru- 
elty, affect  us  unpleasantly.  The  plea  of 
the  unfortunate,  the  thought  of  our  visitor, 
the  opinion  in  the  newspaper,  the  issues 
of  the  time,  impress  us  in  accordance  with 
our  moods  or  natures.  Certain  words, 
tones,  sights,  awaken  echoes  within  us  of 
old  happiness  or  pain. 

There  are  words  and  tones  which  pro- 
duce beautiful  reactions  —  the  lullabies  of 
the  mother,  the  endearments  of  the  lover, 
the  voice  of  sympathy,  the  enchantment 
of  music,  the  messages  of  the  poets,  the 
trumpet  calls  to  honor  and  duty.  And 
[     51     ] 


BALANCE 

there  are  words  which  produce  misun- 
derstanding, confusion,  aversion,  anger  — 
the  words  of  whining,  complaining,  fault- 
finding ;  of  envy,  jealousy,  slander ;  of 
malice,  intolerance,  brutality. 

The  response  to  the  public  speaker  is 
reciprocal  to  his  power.  If  he  be  dull,  the 
hearers  are  wearied;  if  he  be  convincing 
courageous,  forceful,  the  audience  will 
kindle,  and  he  may  rouse  them  to  laugh- 
ter or  tears,  to  indignation  or  fury,  to 
generosity  or  sacrifice.  He  may  change 
the  opinions  and  convictions  of  some  and 
the  course  of  the  lives  of  others;  he  may 
even  save  a  city  from  slaughter  or  make 
a  state.  If  his  thought  be  really  great,  it 
ma}'  live  through  many  ages,  stirring  gen- 
eration after  generation.  The  reaction  of 
moral  effort  may  be  prolonged;  it  may 
even  gain  force  with  time,  indicating  its 
connection  with  some  stupendous  primal 
energy.  The  echo  of  a  great  physical  con- 
vulsion dies  quickly,  but  the  echo  of  the 
[     52     ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

words  of  Confucius  and  Buddha,  of  Plato, 
Seneca  and  Christ,  still  lives.  The  voice 
of  Socrates  before  his  judges  kindles  men 
whose  ancestors  were  untamed  savages 
when  Socrates  spoke.  Buildings  decay, 
monuments  fall,  rivers  run  dry,  races  de- 
cline, but  a  great  thought  suffers  from  no 
impairment  or  decrepitude ;  it  has  the  gift 
of  immortal  youth  and  strength. 


[     53     ] 


VII 

The  Law  of  Consequences  —  The  Good  or  Evil  in 
Things  is  discovered  by  Observation  of  Conse- 
quences —  Morals  are  determined  by  the  Con- 
sequences of  Human  Actions. 

A  REACTION  is  the  consequence 
of  an  action,  an  effect  is  the  con- 
sequence of  a  cause,  a  result  is 
the  consequence  of  an  antecedent.  It  is 
evident  that  the  words  reaction^  effect, 
result  and  consequence  express  different 
manifestations  of  one  law,  usualh'  called 
the  Law  of  Causation,  though  it  would 
be,  I  believe,  more  correctly  named  the 
Law  of  Consequences. 

We  shall  understand  more  clearly  the 
interactions  in  human  affairs  when  we 
recognize  that  the  meaning  of  the  words 
reaction,  effect  and  result  is  included  in 
the  word  consequence.  We  may  doubt  the 
importance  of  reaction  in  our  affairs,  but 
[     54     ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

we  shall  not  doubt  the  importance  of  con- 
sequences. 

We  are  compelled  to  give  considera- 
tion to  consequences  in  the  most  trivial 
affairs.  One  has  consequences  in  view- 
when  he  strikes  a  match,  sets  a  pot  to 
boil,  plants  a  seed,  pulls  a  weed,  sharpens 
a  pencil,  mends  a  fence.  Shall  I  take  an 
umbrella?  I  balance  the  danger  of  rain 
against  the  annoyance  of  the  umbrella,  and 
decide  accordingly.  Shall  I  change  my 
coat.''  take  another  cup  of  coffee?  walk 
or  ride?  Each  question  will  be  decided 
in  accordance  with  my  estimate  of  the 
balance  of  results.  In  considering  pos- 
sible advantages  or  disadvantages,  gains 
or  losses,  we  are  balancing  consequences, 
endeavoring  to  anticipate  and  weigh  the 
results  of  our  actions. 

Regret  is  usually  a  reminder  of  a  neglect 
or  misjudgment  of  consequences,  while 
repentance  and  reformation  indicate  a  wak- 
ing up  concerning  consequences.  Our  in- 
[     55     ] 


BALANCE 


terest,  curiosity,  anxieties,  fears,  hopes 
and  ambitions  are  concentrated  upon  con- 
sequences. We  seek  advice  when  we  are 
doubtful  about  consequences.  Precepts 
and  examples  elucidate  consequences.  We 
work  and  rest,  eat  and  drink,  scheme  and 
plan,  spend  and  save,  for  consequences. 
We  indulge  or  sacrifice  ourselves  for  con- 
sequences. Caisar  expended  a  million  lives 
for  earthly  glory;  St.  Simeon  St}-lites 
scourged  himself  for  eternal  gain.  Our 
actions,  so  far  as  the}'  are  controlled  by 
reason,  are  determined  by  our  judgment 
of  consequences. 

"What?  Does  the  tramp,  the  drunk- 
ard, the  thief,  consider  consequences?" 

The  tramp  roves  because  he  prefers  the 
freedom  and  pleasures  of  his  life  to  the  re- 
sults of  other  ways.  The  drunkard  drinks 
because  the  near  pleasure  outbalances  in 
his  mind  the  more  remote  pain.  The  thief 
steals  because  he  values  the  quick  and 
easy  gain  more  than  he  fears  detection. 
[     56    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

Each  man  judges  consequences  by  his 
own  lights,  which  are  distorted  often  by 
greed,  animalism,  ignorance. 

The  lesson  of  consequences  which  the 
individual  often  learns  slowly  and  imper- 
fectly, the  sound  business  organizations 
acquire  quickly  and  enforce  by  discipline. 
The  salesmen  in  a  successful  store  are 
characterized  by  tidiness,  promptness  and 
a  desire  to  please;  the  employees  of  the 
important  railroads  are  not  even  permitted 
to  answer  insult  with  insult.  The  indus- 
try that  is  intelligently  managed  will  avoid 
misrepresentation  and  deception,  knowing 
that  a  reputation  for  truth  and  fairness  is 
vital  to  continuous  success.  The  shrewd- 
est maxims  of  trade  are  built  upon  the 
observation  of  consequences. 

That  mind  is  the  strongest  which  has 
the  clearest  judgment  of  consequences. 
The  fools  are  those  who  know  little  about 
consequences.  The  child  must  be  guarded 
because  it  is  ignorant  of  consequences. 
[     57     ] 


BALANCE 

What  we  know  of  narcotics,  stimulants, 
antidotes,  hygiene,  surgery,  chemistry,  ag- 
riculture, mechanics,  commerce,  culture, 
we  know  through  the  observation  of  con- 
sequences. The  best  razor,  plough,  sani- 
tary system,  plan  of  social  betterment, 
is  that  which  produces  the  best  results. 
Knowledge,  learning  and  experience  deal 
wholl}'  with  cause  and  consequence.  The 
science  of  astronomy  seeks  to  compre- 
hend the  heavenly  bodies  and  their  influ- 
ences upon  each  other.  The  science  of 
chemistry  explains  the  consequences  of 
chemical  action.  The  science  of  political 
economy  aims  to  distinguish  and  mark  the 
good  and  evil  results  of  different  systems 
of  land  tenure,  taxation,  trade  and  finance. 
The  science  of  government  would  deter- 
mine what  political  system  is  best  for  a 
people.  The  science  of  war  seeks  to  know 
what  arms,  equipments,  forces  and  ma- 
noeuvres will  inflict  the  greatest  injur}- 
upon  the  enemy  with  a  minimum  of  ex- 
[    58     ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 


penditure.  The  science  of  language  deals 
with  the  utility  of  words,  pronunciation  and 
forms  of  expression.  And  so  on  through 
the  whole  of  human  experience,  knowl- 
edge seeks  to  distinguish  that  which  has 
the  best  results  from  that  which  has  infe- 
rior or  evil  results. 

Our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  are  due 
to  the  nature  of  the  responses  to  human 
actions.  How  do  we  know  that  truth  is 
better  than  falsehood?  Because  we  are 
better  pleased  with  ourselves  when  we 
speak  truthfully  than  when  we  lie;  be- 
cause truth  is  essential  to  understanding; 
because  we  despise  lying  in  others;  be- 
cause lying  leads  to  confusion,  uncertainty, 
chaos,  enmity,  and  to  other  evil  conse- 
quences. And  so  also  we  have  formed  a 
judgment  of  loyalty  and  treachery,  cruelty 
and  kindness,  virtue  and  vice,  by  their 
consequences. 

Our  laws,  customs  and  commandments 
would  not  prove  to  us  that  truth  is  better 
[    59    ] 


BALANCE 


than  Kins:  if  our  own  experience  did  not 
contirm  it.  Tlie  Decalogue  is  effective 
only  so  far  as  Nature  corroborates  it. 

Our  common  conceptions  of  morality 
are  the  results  of  the  observation  of  human 
actions  and  their  consequences  —  of  cause 
and  effect,  of  action  and  reaction.  We 
know  that  certain  actions  are  right  and 
others  wrong,  as  we  know  that  bread  is 
good  and  straw  bad  for  food;  that  light 
clothing  is  more  useful  in  summer  than 
in  winter;  that  cleanliness  is  better  than 
filthiness;  that  the  way  to  walk  is  forward, 
not  backward;  that  mirth  is  pleasanter 
than  grief. 

As  the  value  of  a  machine  or  imple- 
ment is  shown  in  its  working,  and  the 
value  of  a  tree  by  its  fruit,  so  the  merit  or 
demerit  of  food,  drink,  medicine,  acts  and 
thoughts  is  determined  by  their  results, 
reactions  or  effects  —  by  their  conse- 
quences. 


[    60    ] 


VIII 

Equivalence  is  the  Test  of  Truth  —  Our  Standards 
are  Instruments  of  Equivalence  —  The  Balancing 
of  Alternatives  —  Reasoning  is  an  Exploration  of 
the  Undetermined,  a  Search  for  Antecedents  and 
Consequences. 

IN  mathematics,  our  one  exact  science, 
equivalence  is  the  test  of  truth.  Con- 
sider the  unalterable  nature  of  the 
truth  expressed  in  the  simplest  equation: 
one  plus  one  equals  two.  Nothing  can 
change  this  result.  That  which  is  so  im- 
pregnable is  the  principle  of  equivalence. 
One  added  to  one  equals  two,  and  can  equal 
nothing  else. 

Equivalence  is  the  test  of  truth  also  in 
the  physical  sciences,  so  far  as  our  knowl- 
edge is  exact,  as  in  chemical  combinations. 
Our  standards  —  the  cent  and  dollar; 
pint  and  gallon;  ounce,  pound  and  ton; 
inch,  foot  and  mile  —  are  instruments 
[     6i     ] 


BALANCE 

of  equivalence.  We  measure  accurately 
only  by  equivalents.  In  the  absence  of  a 
standard,  we  fall  back  on  resemblance, 
analog}',  comparison,  or  some  other  sub- 
stitute for  an  equivalent. 

The  chief  substitute,  used  alike  b}'  the 
humblest  and  highest  minds,  is  the  balanc- 
ing of  alternatives  —  the  measuring  of  one 
thing  by  its  opposite.  The  rules  of  logic  are 
unknown  to  the  mass  of  mankind,  but  no 
one  possessed  of  intelligence  is  unfamiliar 
with  the  process  of  balancing  alternatives. 
Even  the  animals  use  it  when  they  choose 
between  two  paths,  or  two  actions,  as  be- 
tween fight  and  flight.  IMen  use  it  in  every 
dilemma,  great  or  small,  from  the  choice 
between  the  simplest  actions,  to  the  issue 
of  life  or  death.  Is  the  thing  under  con- 
sideration good  or  bad?  Shall  I  vote  for 
A  or  B?  Shall  I  act  now  or  postpone? 
Shall  I  take  a  risk  ?  Shall  I  stop  or  go  on  ? 
Shall  I  change  my  course?  Shall  I  do  this 
or  that?  In  these  and  other  dilemmas,  we 
[    62    ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

balance  the  consequences  of  one  alterna- 
tive against  the  other,  and  choose  what  ap- 
pears to  be  the  better.  Facing  death  in  two 
forms,  we  choose  the  better  way.  Balanc- 
ing alternatives,  one  will  jump  from  a  high 
window  to  the  pavement  to  escape  fire. 

The  moral  dilemmas  presented  to  us  are 
not  always  limited  to  a  clear  choice  be- 
tween right  and  wrong.  It  is  wrong  to 
steal,  but  should  one  starve,  or  permit  those 
dependent  on  him  to  starve,  rather  than 
steal  ?  It  is  right  to  tell  the  truth,  but  should 
one  tell  the  truth  when  it  involves  the  be- 
trayal of  his  comrades,  his  country,  his  fam- 
ily ?  It  is  wrong  to  deceive,  but  would  not 
one  be  justified  in  deceiving  the  enemy 
who  would  destroy  him?  It  is  wrong  to 
kill,  but  may  not  one  kill  in  self  defense? 

The  problem  of  morals  presses  con- 
stantly upon  the  human  race,  presenting 
to  each  individual  in  turn  new  trials, 
difficulties  and  repugnant  choices.  Each 
must,  to  a  large  degree,  choose  his  own 
[    63    ] 


BALANCE 

way,  fight  his  own  battle.  These  are  the 
facts  which  confuse  our  ethical  counselors. 
It  is  not  possible  to  act  always  in  exact 
harmony  with  our  moral  code.  If  one  is 
so  placed  that  he  can  save  his  mother  from 
starvation  only  by  stealing,  he  will  violate 
the  fifth  commandment  if  he  permits  her 
to  starve,  and  lie  will  violate  the  eighth 
commandment  if  he  chooses  to  steal.  The 
choice  between  two  evils  often  comes  to 
the  individual  suddenly  and  imperatively. 
He  must  act  at  once,  rendering  a  deci- 
sion for  which  there  is  often  no  precedent 
known  to  him.  The  Decalogue  which  he 
can  recite,  the  philosophical  analysis  of  the 
evolution  of  ethics,  do  not  aid  him. 

He  who  is  thus  tried,  and  who  desires 
to  do  right,  will  choose  the  course  which 
is  least  evil.  He  will  balance  the  alterna- 
tives, exactly  as  does  the  one  who  jumps 
to  the  pavement  rather  than  remain  in  the 
burning  building. 

Other  alternatives  crowd  upon  us.  Na- 
[    6+    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

ture  presents  to  us  almost  continuously 
the  choice  between  near  pleasure  and  re- 
mote good.  Shall  I  rest  now  and  enjoy 
myself,  or  shall  I  work,  postponing  my  en- 
joyment? Shall  I  give  the  years  of  my 
youth  to  study  or  to  play?  Shall  I  accept 
present  privation  that  I  may  in  time  enjoy 
security?  Shall  I  consider  my  own  inter- 
ests wholl}^,  or  shall  I  make  a  sacrifice  for 
others?  Shall  I  stay  at  home  in  comfort, 
or  shall  I  risk  my  life  for  my  country? 
Shall  I  disown  my  faith,  or  shall  I  accept 
death  by  torture?  Numberless  are  the 
choices  between  the  near  and  the  remote 
good  which  men  must  make.  The  lower 
men  show  little  appreciation  of  the  remote 
good,  save  as  they  are  inspired  by  the 
instinct  of  self  preservation.  The  higher 
men  are  distinguished  by  their  high  valua- 
tion of  the  remote  good  —  by  provision 
for  the  future,  by  attention  to  health,  by 
interest  in  culture,  by  sound  investments, 
by  building  business,  houses  and  charac- 
[    65    ] 


BALANCE 

ter    substantially,  by  a   high   estimate  of 
honor  and  duty. 

Reasoning  is  an  exploration  of  the  unde- 
termined—  an  elucidation  of  the  unknown 
throutrh  the  known  or  the  discoverable. 
There  is  no  difficulty  in  measuring  with 
exact  standards  to  measure  by,  and  with 
something  tangible  to  measure  —  for  ex- 
ample, in  determining  the  number  of  cubic 
feet  in  a  room,  or  the  power  of  an  engine. 
Reasoning,  which  is  eas}'  so  far  as  it  deals 
with  exact  equivalents,  becomes  difficult 
when  applied  to  things  the  equivalents  of 
which  are  unknown.  The  mind  instinc- 
tivel}'  seeks  for  the  unknown  equivalents, 
and  finds  them  in  antecedents  or  conse- 
quences. Chemical  experimentation  is  a 
search  for  consequences;  bacteriological 
investiofation  is  a  search  for  antecedents. 
The  search  in  both  cases  is  for  equivalents 
by  which  we  may  determine  the  nature  and 
meaning  of  the  thing:  tried,  or  its  relations 


to  other  things. 


[     66     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

The  syllogism  in  logic  is  a  form  by 
which  one  may  advance  from  antecedents 
to  a  consequent.  The  essence  of  a  syllo- 
gism is  this :  that  a  premise  includes  all  of 
its  consequences.  If  a  premise  be  true,  its 
consequences  will  be  true;  if  it  be  false, 
its  consequences  will  be  false.  Conclu- 
sions, corollaries,  deductions,  judgments, 
inferences,  discoveries  and  estimates  are 
consequences  —  each  following  from  an 
antecedent  or  antecedents. 

The  failure  to  consider,  or  to  estimate 
correctly,  the  consequences  of  a  position 
is  fatal  in  reasoning.  This  is  illustrated 
in  the  case  of  a  number  of  schools  of 
thought  holding  conclusions  concerning 
the  most  important  questions  of  life  which 
are  in  contradiction  to  human  experience 
or  to  reason  —  for  example,  idealism  and 
fatalism. 

That  form  of  idealism  which  denies  the 
existence  of  matter,  has  been  supported 
by  many  famous  minds,  in  neglect  of  its 
[    67    ] 


BALANCE 

consequences,  for  we  know  that  no  idealist 
could  act  as  if  matter  had  no  existence  — 
could  live  and  move  about  in  contempt  of 
mud,  stone  walls,  mountains,  rivers,  seas, 
snow,  ice,  fire,  food,  poison,  gunpowder, 
clothing,  beds. 

Fatalism  —  known  under  different  names, 
as  foreordination,  predestination,  neces- 
sity, determinism  —  the  theory  that  man 
is  an  automaton,  an  instrument  moved 
and  played  upon  by  external  influences 
or  powers,  has  been  defended  b}'  many 
eminent  theologians,  philosophers  and 
other  thinkers,  including  some  distin- 
guished modern  scientists.  Observe,  in 
the  face  of  the  intellectual  prominence 
of  the  fatalists,  how  completely  the  con- 
sequences of  fatalism  refute  that  theory. 
One  convinces  himself  that  fatalism  is 
true,  that  he  and  all  other  men  are  au- 
tomatons. He  must  convince  himself 
through  reason.  But  an  automaton  can- 
not reason.  He  convinces  himself  through 
[     68     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 


reason  that  he    is  an  automaton  without 


reason 


The  method  of  reasoning  justified  by  ex- 
perience, used  by  men  in  contact  with  the 
problems  and  difficulties  of  life,  whether 
the  problems  and  difficulties  be  the  most 
simple  or  the  most  complex,  is  the  method 
of  common  sense  —  the  testing  of  ante- 
cedents by  consequents,  and  of  conse- 
quents by  antecedents. 

We  judge  the  value  of  a  machine,  a 
field,  a  cow,  a  pig,  by  what  it  will  pro- 
duce; a  picture,  a  scene,  a  play,  a  spec- 
tacle, a  poem,  a  song,  a  book,  a  thought, 
by  what  it  gives  back  to  us;  a  creed,  an 
opinion,  a  plan,  a  policy,  a  system,  a  phi- 
losophy, a  deduction,  a  conclusion,  by 
what  we  believe  its  consequences  are  or 
will  be. 

We  estimate  the  value   of  a  nation,  a 

race,  by  its  history,  its  antecedent  record. 

The  calculations  of  future  events  by  the 

astronomers  are  based  on  antecedent  ex- 

[    69    ] 


BALANCE 

perience.  We  must  judge  what  will  be  by 
what  has  been.  We  search  alike  for  good 
seeds  and  evil  germs  that  we  may  propa- 
gate the  one,  and  destro}'  the  other. 

To  comprehend  the  unknown  seed,  we 
plant  it  and  observe  its  consequences.  To 
comprehend  an  unexplained  crime,  we 
search  for  its  antecedents.  The  process 
of  reasoning,  e\en  of  the  most  abstract 
reasoning,  is  the  same.  Our  knowledge 
of  a  thing  is  limited  by  our  knowledge  of 
its  antecedents  and  consequences.  An  ad- 
vance in  knowledge,  from  the  humblest 
step  to  the  highest  scientific  achievement, 
comes  from  the  investigation  of  antece- 
dents or  consequences. 

As  a  physical  interaction  includes  cause 
and  effect,  and  perfect  equivalence  be- 
tween them,  so  does  the  mental  interaction 
which  we  call  reasoning  include  antecedent 
and  consequence,  and  perfect  equivalence 
between  them.  We  are  unable  to  think  of 
antecedents  and  consequences  as  being 
[     7°     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

other  than  exact — of  peaches  as  growing 
on  apple  trees,  or  of  acorns  that  produce 
potatoes.  The  measure  of  truth  and  false- 
hood will  be  found  in  their  equivalents  — 
in  their  antecedents  and  consequences. 


C     71     ] 


IX 

Compensation  in  Human  Affairs  —  Problems  of  Busi- 
ness are  Problems  of  Compensation — Right  is 
accomplished  by  rendering  Equivalents  —  Duty 
is  a  Debt,  literally  a  Due  —  The  Golden  Rule  is  a 
Law  of  Equivalent  Exchange. 

IN  primitive  times  trade  was  by  bar- 
ter —  a  fish  for  a  rabbit,  a  shell  for  a 
cocoanut,  or  service  for  service  —  a 
direct  exchange  of  articles  or  labor.  Mod- 
ern coinmerce  is  still  correctly  designated 
as  "trade"  or '"  exchange,"  though  methods 
are  improved.  Money,  drafts,  credit  and 
transportation  are  instrumentalities  of  ex- 
change, of  balance.  I  exchange  my  labor 
for  money,  which  is  good  in  exchange  for 
whatever  may  be  in  the  market.  A  debt 
is  a  deferred  balance.  A  promissory  note 
is  an  agreement  to  settle  a  balance.  A 
bank  check  is  a  draft  upon  a  balance  in 
bank  to  close  or  reduce  a  balance  else- 

r  72  ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

where.  Systems  of  accounting  are  agencies 
of  balance.  The  correctness  of  bookkeep- 
ing is  tested  by  a  balance. 

Interest  is  the  pcnalt}'  for  a  postponed 
payment,  for  a  delayed  balance.  The  busi- 
ness done  on  a  cash  basis  is  balanced 
continuously;  the  business  done  on  credit 
is  out  of  balance,  involving  risk.  The  de- 
lay of  compensation  is  dangerous.  Fail- 
ures, bankruptcies  and  business  panics 
are  due  to  debt,  the  neglect  of  compensa- 
tion. 

Life  consists  almost  wholly  of  buying, 
selling,  paying.  There  are  no  gifts,  noth- 
ing that  does  not  call  for  an  equivalent. 
If  we  cannot  pay  for  gifts  in  kind,  we  must 
pay  in  gratitude  or  service,  or  we  shall 
rank  as  moral  bankrupts. 

If  I  would  have  a  good  situation,  I  must 
pay  for  it  not  only  in  labor,  but  in  prompt- 
ness, intelligence,  faithfulness  and  good 
manners.  If  I  would  have  good  service,  I 
must  pa}'  not  onl}-  in  money,  but  in  con- 
[    73     ] 


BALANCE 

sideration,  recognition,  appreciation,  fair- 
ness. I  can  liold  no  one  to  me  if  I  mis- 
use him. 

All  things  are  to  be  had  for  the  bining. 
Would  you  have  friends?  Then  pay  the 
price.  The  price  of  friendship  is  to  be 
worthy  of  friendship.  The  price  of  glory 
is  to  do  something  glorious.  The  price  of 
shame  is  to  do  something  shameful. 

Friendship,  glorv,  honor,  admiration, 
courage,  infam}',  contempt,  hatred,  are  all 
in  the  market-place  for  sale  at  a  price. 
We  are  buying  and  selling  these  things 
constantl}'  as  we  will.  Even  beauty  is  for 
sale.  Plain  women  can  gain  beauty  by  cul- 
tivating grace,  animation,  pleasant  speech, 
intelligence,  helpfulness,  courage  or  good 
will.  Beauty  is  not  in  the  features  alone; 
it  is  in  the  soul  also. 

Good  will  buys  good  will,  friendliness 
buys  friendship,  confidence  begets  confi- 
dence, service  rewards  service  ;  and  hate 
pays    for    hate,    suspicion    for    suspicion, 

[      74     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

treachery  for  treachery,  contempt  for 
ingratitude,  slovenliness,  laziness  and 
lying. 

We  plant  a  shrub,  a  rosebush,  an  orchard, 
with  the  expectation  that  they  will  pay  us 
back.  We  build  roads,  mend  harness  and 
patch  the  roof  with  the  same  expectation. 
We  will  trust  even  these  unconscious 
things  to  pay  their  debts. 

Some  of  our  investments  are  good,  and 
some  are  bad.  The  good  qualities  we 
acquire  —  moderation,  industry,  courtesy, 
order,  patience,  candor  —  are  sound  in- 
vestments. Our  evil  institutions  and  habits 
are  bad  investments,  involving  us  in  losses. 
We  become  debtors  to  them,  and  they  are 
exacting  creditors,  forcing  payment  in  full 
in  money  and  labor,  and  sometimes  in 
blood,  agony,  tears,  humiliation  or  shame. 

We  recently  had  in  this  country  the  in- 
stitution of  chattel  slaverv,  which  we  had 
cultivated  for  two  hundred  years.  Prepar- 
atory to  going  out  of  business,  this  insti- 
[     75     ] 


BALANCE 

tiition  called  on  us  for  final  settlement. 
Our  indebtedness,  which  proved  to  be 
large  —  amounting  to  more  than  half  a 
million  lives  and  over  six  thousand  mil- 
lion dollars  —  was  paid  in  full.  It  seems 
strange  that  our  institution  of  slavery, 
with  no  standing  among  the  great  powers 
of  the  earth,  should  have  been  able  to  col- 
lect such  an  indemnity  in  blood,  treasure 
and  pain  from  an  enlightened  people,  tak- 
ing a  drop  of  blood  from  the  dominant 
race  ''  for  every  drop  drawn  by  the  lash." 

We  are  administering  compensation 
continualh'  in  our  praise  and  blame  of  our 
fellow  men —  in  applause  to  a  poet  or  dis- 
coverer, in  condemnation  of  the  greedy  and 
rapacious,  in  aversion  to  injustice,  in  love 
to  our  benefactors. 

"  Each  day,"  as  Emerson  says,  "  is  a  day 
of  judgment."  We  are  judged  continually, 
and  usually  correctly,  by  our  associates  and 
friends.  And  we  are  constant!}'  paying 
penalties  to  or  receiving  rewards  from 
[    :6    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

our  judges  —  penalties  in  the  indifference, 
dislike,  contempt  and  detestation  of  our 
fellows;  rewards  in  their  appreciation, 
confidence,  good  will  and  love. 

The  vulgar  receive  no  respect,  the  heart- 
less no  sympathy,  the  rapacious  no  affec- 
tion. It  is  better  to  be  a  dog  that  has  earned 
a  little  love  than  Caesar  in  triumph,  his 
enemies  on  his  chariot  wheels. 

Compensation  is  in  the  frost  on  the  win- 
dow pane,  and  in  the  sunset  of  gold  and 
crimson  and  purple,  which  reward  the  ar- 
tistic sense  in  the  minds  even  of  the  for- 
lorn and  poor;  in  the  hope  in  the  hearts 
of  men  which  makes  life  endurable;  in  the 
first  cry  of  the  infant  which  rewards  the 
mother's  agony. 

Right  is  accomplished  by  rendering 
equivalents.  Duty  is  a  debt,  literally  a  due, 
which  we  owe  to  ourselves  or  to  others. 
The  Golden  Rule  is  a  perfect  law  of  equiv- 
alent exchange,  and  Kant's  "  categorical 
imperative  "  —  "  Act  according  to  that 
[    11    ] 


BALANCE 

maxim  only  wliich  you  can  wish  at  the 
same  time  to  become  the  universal  hiw  " 
—  is  also  an  exact  law  of  reciprocity. 

'^  The  real  tirst  truth  of  morality,"  says 
Victor  Cousin,  ''is  justice.  It  is  justice, 
therefore,  and  not  duty,  that  strictly  de- 
serves the  name  of  a  principle."  "  Univer- 
sal justice,"  says  Aristotle,  "  includes  all 
virtue."  "Justice  is  the  greatest  good," 
says  Plato. 

Justice  is  the  foundation  of  retribution, 
vindication,  reparation,  obligation,  reci- 
procity, accountability,  duty.  Justice  is 
compensation. 

Everything  in  Nature,  conscious  and  un- 
conscious, animate  and  inanimate,  is  busily 
engaged  in  paying  its  debts.  By  what  sys- 
tem is  this  perfect  accounting  made?  We 
see  no  books,  observe  no  management,  and 
yet  the  numberless  settlements  are  made 
with  as  much  exactness  as  if  each  one  were 
superintended  by  a  group  of  experts,  com- 
bining more  of  knowledge  and  justice  than 
[     78     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

are  possessed  by  all  of  the  mathemati- 
cians, scientists,  thinkers,  philosophers  and 
judges  in  the  world.  We  cannot  explain 
this  accounting  on  the  theory  of  chance 
or  accident;  we  must  conclude  that  it  is 
the  consequence  of  a  supreme  power  or 
principle  of  order,  right  and  justice  which 
regulates  the  affairs  of  the  world. 


[     79     ] 


X 

Order  is  Regulation  ;  Balance  is  Regulator.  Right 
is  Correctness ;  Balance  is  Corrector.  Justice  is 
Compensation ;  Balance  is  Compensator — Balance 
is  Single  and  Supreme,  without  a  Mate  or  Equal. 

BALANCE  is  a  word  in  which  are 
concentrated,    I    hold,    the    higher 
meanings  of  the  words  order,  right 
and  justice. 

The  high  and  more  general  meanings  of 
the  word  order  —  such  as  sequence,  regu- 
larity of  succession  and  method,  right  ar- 
rangement—  fit  well  into  the  word  balance. 
In  other  words,  balance  may  include  the 
higher  meanings  of  order,  but  order  does 
not  include  all  of  balance.  We  shall  not 
find  the  fundamental  explanations  of  the 
system  of  Nature  in  order.  Effect,  it  is 
true,  follows  cause,  and  reaction  follows 
action,  in  an  orderly  manner.  This  is  a 
process,  a  general  way  of  Nature.  Such  a 
[    80    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

statement,  however,  gives  out  little  light. 
But  when  we  say  that  effect  balances 
cause,  that  reaction  balances  action,  then 
we  make  a  distinct  advance  toward  unity 
and  light. 

Right  is  a  word  of  broad  and  noble 
meaning,  but  it  also  does  not  fit  com- 
pletely into  the  fundamental  explanations 
of  the  system  of  Nature,  or  apply  as  per- 
fectly as  does  the  word  balance  to  every 
interaction. 

The  figure  illustrating  justice  is  a  god- 
dess blindfolded,  holding  the  scales  of  bal- 
ance in  her  hands.  Justice  is  balance  in 
human  affairs.  Balance  is  wider  than  jus- 
tice, since  it  includes  justice  and  more  than 
justice.  There  is  no  justice  in  the  moon, 
where  there  is  no  life,  but  balance  is  there. 

Balance  includes  order,  right  and  jus- 
tice, but  none  of  the  latter  can  include 
completely  the  former.  Balance  is  an 
active,  governing  principle,  supreme,  cen- 
tral, automatic.  Order  is  regulation;  bal- 
[    8i     ] 


BALANCE 

ance  is  regulator.  Right  is  correctness; 
balance  is  corrector.  Justice  is  compen- 
sation;  balance  is  compensator. 

As  we  advance  in  knowledge  we  per- 
ceive more  and  more  of  duality  in  the 
processes  of  Nature.  Doubtless  we  shall 
know  in  time  that  all  processes,  save  the 
supreme  process,  are  double.  We  know 
now  that  the  law  of  causation  is  misnamed; 
it  is  reallv  the  law  of  cause  and  effect. 
And  so  also  the  law  of  evolution  is  actually 
the  law  of  evolution  and  devolution.  That 
the  tit  survive  is  only  a  half  truth,  the 
other  half  being  this  —  that  the  unfit  die. 
That  matter  and  force  are  indestructible 
is  also  a  half  of  the  complete  truth  that 
matter  and  force  are  indestructible  and 
uncreatable.  The  law  of  consequences  is 
really  the  law  of  antecedents  and  conse- 
quences, though  I  shall  continue,  for  the 
sake  of  brevity,  to  designate  it  as  single. 

As  Roget  has  shown,  nearly  all  of  the 
important  words  in  our  language  are  bal- 
[    82    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

anced  by  words  of  opposite  meaning. 
Even  honor  is  balanced  by  dishonor,  vir- 
tue by  vice,  right  by  wrong.  But  where 
shall  we  find  the  obverse  of  balance,  its 
other  half,  mate  or  contrar}^,  the  force 
which  matches  balance  on  equal  terms  ? 
I  know  of  no  such  energy  or  principle.  It 
has  no  name;  no  word  in  our  language 
expresses  such  meaning.  We  say  that  re- 
action balances  action,  attraction  balances 
repulsion,  order  balances  disorder,  and  so 
on,  but  what  balances  Balance?  These 
words  in  which  I  attempt  to  consider  the 
balancing  of  balance  become  ridiculous, 
indicating  the  absurdity  of  the  thought 
that  balance  is  itself  subject  to  balance. 
Balance  is  single  and  supreme,  without  a 
mate  or  equal. 


[    83     ] 


XI 


Natural  Justice  —  Compensation  in  Human  Affairs 
involves  a  Cycle  of  Beginning,  Development  and 
Conclusion,  as  Seed  Time,  Growth  and  Harvest  — 
Tyranny  is  an  Antidote  for  Mean  Spiritedness,  and 
Courage  is  the  Antidote  for  Tyranny  —  Through 
such  Rude  Alternations  do  we  move  forward. 

"  1    \  VT  what  of  the  failures  of  balance, 

II  uf  the  awful  accidents  and  terrible 

convulsions   of    Nature   in    which 

balance   seems  to   be   absent,   or  at  least 

tardy  or  inefficient?" 

The  convulsions  of  Nature  arc  not 
violations  of  balance  ;  they  are  the  phe- 
nomena connected  with  Nature's  great 
interactions.  LisfhtninCT  is  the  shock  ac- 
companying  the  establishing  of  equipoise 
between  two  clouds,  or  between  a  cloud 
and  the  earth.  An  earthquake  is  the 
equalization  of  an  internal  pressure  upon 
the  crust  of  the  earth.  And  so  cyclones, 
[    84    1 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

volcanic  eruptions,  floods,  droughts,  epi- 
demics and  other  disturbances  are  the 
consequences  of  the  antecedents  which 
produced  them. 

"  You  admit,  then,  that  things  are  not 
always  in  balance,  and  that  man  can  defy 
balance  ?  " 

Man  cannot  defy  balance.  His  acts  must 
produce  equivalent  consequences.  The  use 
of  rotten  harness,  imperfect  boilers,  defect- 
ive flues,  bad  plumbing,  weak  buildings 
and  faulty  machinery  will  invite  disaster. 
Whenever  the  internal  pressure  overbal- 
ances the  strength  of  the  boiler,  we  have 
what  we  call  an  accident,  though  it  is 
not  really  an  accident,  being  the  result 
of  ignorance  or  of  a  miscalculation  of 
forces. 

We  invite  evil  consequences  in  overeat- 
ing and  overdrinking,  in  overworking  and 
underworking,  in  neglecting  sanitary  pre- 
cautions, in  worrying  and  straining  beyond 
our  strength,  thereby  receiving  many  a 
[    85     ] 


BALANCE 

hard  rap  and  sometimes  a  deathblow.  We 
live  in  the  kingdom  of  equivalence  and 
compensation.  Its  laws  are  very  strict, 
and  wc  cannot  evade  them.  If  we  violate 
them,  we  must  pay  the  penalty. 

To  sav  that  compensation  is  defeated 
because  it  requires  time  for  completion  is 
as  unreasonable  as  if  one  should  say  that  a 
journey  is  endless  because  its  conclusion 
is  not  reached  in  an  instant,  or  that  the 
seed  planted  this  morning  is  a  failure  be- 
cause it  does  not  produce  an  ear  of  corn 
this  afternoon.  We  do  not  comprehend 
the  Rocky  INIountains  through  the  first 
glimpse  of  one  of  its  peaks,  nor  is  the 
whole  process  of  evolution  to  be  found  in 
one  of  Darwin's  lines.  And  compensation 
also  is  revealed  only  by  the  whole  of  it 
—  in  its  completeness  —  and  not  in  one 
glimpse  or  line. 

The  processes  of  compensation  in  human 
affairs  involve  usually  a  cycle  of  begin- 
ning,   development    and    conclusion  —  as 

[     86     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

seed  time,  growth  and  harvest  —  for  com- 
pletion. A  headache,  separated  from  the 
indulgence  that  preceded  it,  is  apparently 
wrong;  connected  with  its  cause,  it  is 
right.  To  judge  a  thing,  we  must  know 
its  antecedents  and  consequences.  We 
cannot  determine  the  exact  status  of  a 
wrong,  or  of  what  appears  to  be  a  wrong, 
unless  we  know  that  antecedents  do  not 
justify  it,  or  that  consequences  will  not 
rectify  it. 

At  the  end  of  all  our  reasoning  con- 
cerning the  fundamental  questions  of  life, 
we  must  choose  between  two  alternatives 
—  either  (i)  all  things  are  in  the  process 
of  being  righted,  or  (2)  the  world-order 
is  hopelessly  wrong. 

The  correction  of  excess  and  deficiency 
is  the  province  of  balance.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  make  a  list  of  the  influences 
and  forces  which  antagonize  excess  or  de- 
ficiency, for  we  do  not  know,  and  doubt- 
less never  will  know,  all  of  them,  as  they 
[    87    ] 


BALANCE 


are  included  in  the  most  subtle  and  minute 
phenomena  of  action  and  reaction,  of  cause 
and  effect.  Human  law,  for  illustration,  is 
designed  to  prevent  excess  or  deficiency 

—  not  only  statute  law  and  common  law, 
but  haws  of  decorum,  ceremony,  courtesy, 
etiquette,  custom,  usage,  manners,  trade. 
These  laws  are  more  or  less  defective, 
themselves  subject  to  excess  or  deficiency 

—  as  laws  of  despotism,  privilege,  mono- 
poly, fashion —  and  sadly  require  the  regu- 
lation of  balance.  To  one  who  suffers  from 
defective  laws,  the  force  that  corrects  them 
seems  to  be  far  off  or  even  non-existent. 
We  should  remember,  however,  that  bal- 
ance works  sometimes  secretly,  as  in  the 
imperceptible  rhythm  said  to  exist  in  all 
motion,  and  sometimes  silently  through 
centuries,  as  in  the  transformation  of  sun- 
shine into  coal. 

The  world  has  doubtless  suffered  more 
from  t3Tann3'  in  its  many  forms  than  from 
any  other  perversion  of  order  in  human 

[     88     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

affairs.  Yet  we  may  perceive  much  of 
balance  in  the  origin,  development  and 
conclusion  even  of  tyranny.  The  tyrant 
rules  because  he  is  the  stronger.  Strength 
will  rule  over  weakness.  No  protest  or 
complaint,  no  weeping  or  wailing,  will 
change  that  fact.  Tyranny  exists  by  the 
consent  of  the  oppressed.  Those  are  en- 
slaved who  are  willing  to  be  owned,  who 
are  too  ignorant  or  cowardly  to  resist,  or 
who  consent  to  temporize.  We  enslaved 
the  negro  because  he  lacked  spirit,  but  we 
failed  to  enslave  the  Indian.  The  Indian 
accepted  death,  and  declined  slavery. 
There  were  negroes,  too,  who  declined 
slavery,  and  found  freedom  in  the  north 
or  in  death. 

There  is  something  in  tyranny  that 
rouses  the  spirit  of  men,  even  of  dull  and 
cowardly  men.  It  may  be  that  we  owe 
more  to  our  tyrants  than  to  our  benevo- 
lent autocracies,  which  have  soothed  and 
lulled  us  into  indifference  and  inglorious 
[    89    ] 


BALANCE 

content.  Tyranny  is  an  antidote  for  mean 
spiritedness,  and  courage  is  the  antidote 
for  t3Tanny.  Through  these  rude  alterna- 
tions do  we  move  forward.  We  would 
value  freedom  little  if  we  knew  nothing  of 
oppression. 

As  for  the  tyrant,  he  thinks  of  poison 
when  he  eats  and  drinks;  he  sees  danger 
in  the  sullen  faces  of  his  slaves.  He  lives 
in  dread  of  assassination,  and  often  dies 
by  it.  He  sees  danger  even  where  there  is 
no  danger.  He  cuts  a  sony  figure  in  his- 
tory. His  life  is  uneasy  and  his  memory 
is  detested.  There  are  no  happy  tyrants. 
The  ofreat  tyrants  earn  ininiortal  infamy; 
the  small  ones  secure  the  hatred  of  those 
who  know  them.  The  account,  as  we  see  it, 
balances  rudel}' ;  doubtless  it  would  bal- 
ance to  a  hair  if  we  could  trace  all  of  the 
remote  antecedents  and  consequences  of 
tyranny.  Doubtless  also,  if  we  could  trace 
the  antecedents  and  consequences  of  all 
other  evils,  we  should  know  tliat  there  is 
[    90    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

no  trouble  which  time  will  not  heal,  no 
wrong  which  is  not  in  the  process  of  being 
righted. 

The  universe  is  under  the  reign  of  law, 
which  is  everywhere  —  in  things  mean  and 
minute  as  well  as  in  things  noble  and  great. 
So  far  as  we  have  come  into  an  under- 
standing of  these  laws,  we  have  found 
none  defective. 

No  sound  philosophy  can  concede  that 
a  law  of  Nature  can  be  out  of  balance  or 
in  any  way  less  than  true  and  perfect. 
When  we  advance  a  theory  to  the  point 
where  it  would  prove  that  a  law  of  Nature 
is  out  of  balance  and  defective,  we  should 
know  that  the  conclusion  is  wrong;  that 
it  is  our  reasoning,  and  not  the  law,  that  is 
out  of  balance  and  defective. 


[    91     ] 


XII 

Justice  is  Incomplete  in  the  Present  Existence  —  Our 
Life  here  is  as  a  Broken  Part  of  a  Broader  Life  — 
If  Death  ends  All,  then  the  Mass  of  Mankind  must 
live,  toil,  suffer  and  die  under  a  Condition  of  Hope- 
less Injustice. 

WE  must  admit,  however,  that  jus- 
tice, which  is  balance  in  human 
affairs,  is  incomplete  in  this  life. 
All  men  are  endowed  at  birth  with  unequal 
strength,  intelligence  and  moral  qualities. 
One,  born  of  superior  antecedents,  is 
reared  under  benign  influences,  develops 
into  noble  manhood,  lives  under  favorable 
environments  to  a  good  old  age,  and  dies 
tranquill}-.  Another,  a  woman,  born  of 
low  antecedents,  is  sold  by  a  degraded 
mother  into  prostitution,  lives  a  short  and 
wretched  life,  and  dies  miserably.  One, 
inheriting  a  mean  intellect,  lives  on  a 
level  a  little  above  the  brute  ;  another, 
[    9^    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

the  idiot,  is  more  helpless  than  the  brute. 
To  one  pair  are  born  tine  children,  who 
grow  up  to  helpful  maturity;  to  another 
pair  comes  a  drunkard,  a  degenerate,  an 
imbecile  or  a  criminal.  One,  who  con- 
forms to  the  opinions  or  institutions  of  his 
time,  perhaps  ignorantly  or  dishonestly, 
lives  peacefully  to  old  age;  another,  more 
intelligent  or  sincere,  suffers  martyrdom 
for  his  devotion  to  right  and  duty. 

A  few  live  long  and  pleasant  lives,  into 
which  enters  no  unusual  trouble,opain  or 
misfortune.  The  lives  of  the  many  are 
short  and  broken,  or  rendered  burdensome 
by  slavish  toil ;  "  by  griefs  that  gnaw  deep, 
by  woes  that  are  hard  to  bear."  Story 
pictures  these,  in  his  "  lo  Victis,"  as  — 

..."  the  low  and  the  humble,  the  weary  and  broken 

in  heart, 
Who  strove  and  who  failed,  acting  bravely  a  silent 

and  desperate  part ; 
Whose  youth  bore  no  flower  on  its  branches,  whose 

hopes  burned  in  ashes  away, 
[     93     ] 


BALANCE 

From  whose  hands  slipped  the  prize  they  had  grasped 
at,  who  stood  at  the  dying  of  day, 

With  the  work  of  their  life  all  around  them,  unpitied, 
unheeded,  alone. 

With  death  swooping  down  o'er  their  failure,  and  all 
but  their  faith  overthrown." 

Nor  are  the  good  always  happy  nor  the 
vicious  wretched  in  proportion  to  their  de- 
serts in  this  life.  To  the  contrary,  the  good 
are  often  wretched  and  the  vicious  happy. 

The  life  here  is  as  one  act  in  a  play  or 
one  chapter  in  a  novel,  in  which  the  plot 
has  neither  opening  nor  conclusion,  and 
in  which  the  action,  separated  from  the 
preceding  and  succeeding  parts,  is  appar- 
ently without  purpose,  sense  or  justice  — 
in  which  wrong  and  villain}'  may  be  tri- 
umphant and  integrity  and  virtue  trampled 
in  the  dust. 

Perhaps  our  passion  for  fiction  and  the 

drama  is  due  to  the  fact  that  in  them  we 

find  that  completeness  and  justice  which 

we    rarely   see  in  real  life.    In  them  the 

[     94     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

good,  after  many  difficulties  and  troubles, 
are  triumphant,  and  the  evil  are  finally  un- 
done. 

Our  fondness  for  biography  and  history 
—  which  abound  also  in  rewards,  retribu- 
tions and  other  equities  —  can  be  explained 
on  similar  grounds.  We  discover  that  com- 
pleteness and  justice  come  to  the  individ- 
ual slowly,  but  surely,  in  a  historic  sense; 
that  those  made  great  by  accident  are  in 
time  forgotten;  that  the  tyrannical  and  the 
cruel  are  detested;  that  Columbus  left  a 
better  legacy  than  Caesar;  that  Newton  is 
more  honored  than  any  English  king;  that 
Burns,  the  rustic  poet,  is  better  loved  than 
Bonaparte,  the  conqueror.  And  we  ob- 
serve that  Lincoln  —  whose  youth  was  for- 
lorn, whose  life  was  full  of  care,  who  was 
murdered  in  the  hour  of  his  triumph  — 
still  lives  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen. 

And  we  learn  to  believe  that  the  books 
of  Nature  must  balance;  that  Time  glori- 
fies the  just,  humiliates  the  arrogant,  levels 
[     95     ] 


BALANCE 

all  inequalities,  revenges  all  outrages,  rights 
all  wrong. 

Thus  we  tind  in  both  fact  and  fiction, 
and  in  the  hunger  for  justice  in  our  own 
hearts,  some  warrant  for  our  old  faith  that 
the  present  life  is  only  a  broken  part  of  a 
much  broader  life  which  will  be  complete, 
and  in  which  all  things  will  be  made  right 
and  even. 

If  this  life  were  broken  into  still  shorter 
fragments,  it  would  appear  to  be  still  more 
unjust.  If,  for  illustration,  each  life  con- 
sisted of  one  day  only,  then  the  lives  of 
some  would  fall  upon  fair,  mild  or  bril- 
liant days,  and  others  upon  wet,  cold  or 
hot  davs;  some  upon  the  long  da3's  of 
June,  and  others  upon  the  short  days  of 
December;  and  some  upon  days  into  which 
no  sunlight  would  enter,  and  these  would 
doubt  even  the  existence  of  the  sun. 

But  our  life  here  consists  of  man}-  days, 
and  we  know  that  the  good  days  outnum- 
ber the  bad  ones;  that  the  seasons  return 
[    96    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

with  precision,  and  that  there  are  but  slight 
variations  in  the  annual  rainfall  and  tem- 
perature of  any  given  district. 

A  week  or  even  a  month  of  bad  days 
does  not  discourage  us,  for  we  know  that 
in  the  round  of  a  year  we  shall  have  about 
so  much  of  rain  and  drought,  sunshine  and 
fog,  heat  and  cold.  So  far  as  the  weather 
is  concerned.  Nature's  average  restores 
approximate  equilibrium  in  the  cvcle  of 
a  year,  and  complete  balance  in  a  term  of 
years. 

The  broader  the  basis  of  reckoning,  the 
more  perfect  is  the  equivalence  established 
by  statistics  and  experience.  While  we 
have  in  our  present  life  manifestations  of 
balance  in  the  alternations  of  the  weather, 
in  the  recurrence  of  the  seasons  and  in 
many  other  phenomena,  and  while  a  tend- 
ency toward  justice  is  evident  in  all  hu- 
man affairs,  it  is  clear  that  the  life  here  is 
neither  lon^  enous^h  nor  broad  enough  to 
establish  complete  compensation. 
[     97     ] 


BALANCE 

A  full  consideration  of  the  subject  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that,  if  death  ends  all, 
then  the  mass  of  mankind  must  live,  toil, 
suffer  and  die  under  a  condition  of  hope- 
less injustice  —  and  hence  that  the  only 
basis  for  the  belief  that  justice  will  be 
completel}'  established  in  human  affairs  is 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul. 

This  conclusion  sheds  much  light  upon 
the  universality,  persistence  and  rational 
meaning  of  religion. 


XIII 

The  Essential  Meaning  of  Religion  is  found  in  the 
Agreements,  and  not  in  the  Disagreements,  among 
Believers  —  There  are  Three  Fundamental  Reli- 
gious Beliefs :  (i)  That  the  Soul  is  Accountable 
for  its  Actions ;  (2)  That  the  Soul  survives  the 
Death  of  the  Body ;  (3)  In  a  Supreme  Power  that 
rights  Things. 

RELIGION  is  the  oldest,  the  most 
universal  and  the  most  permanent 
of  the  institutions  of  men.  We 
have  no  historic  record  of  a  people  who 
were  destitute  of  every  form  and  manifes- 
tation of  religion.  It  is  nurtured  by  civili- 
zation; it  existed  among  the  earlier  and 
lower  men. 

Tylor  ranks  perhaps  as  the  foremost  in- 
vestigator of  primitive  beliefs.  In  consid- 
ering the  theory  that  there  must  be  tribes 
so  low  as  to  be  destitute  of  religious  faith, 
he  says: 

[     99     ] 


BALANCE 


"  Though  the  theoretical  niche  is  ready  and  con- 
venient, the  actual  statue  to  fill  it  is  not  forthcoming. 
The  case  is  in  some  degree  similar  to  that  of  the 
tribes  asserted  to  exist  without  language  or  without 
the  use  of  fire  ;  nothing  in  the  nature  of  things  seems 
to  forbid  the  possibility  of  such  existence,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  tribes  are  not  found.  Thus  the 
assertion  that  rude  non-religious  tribes  have  been 
known  in  actual  existence,  though  in  theory  possible, 
and  perhaps  in  fact  true,  does  not  at  present  rest  on 
that  sufficient  proof  which,  for  an  exceptional  state 
of  things,  we  are  entitled  to  demand."  —  Primitive 
Culture,  i.  418. 

Concerning  the  harmonies  in  religious 
beliefs,  Tylor  also  says: 

"  No  religion  of  mankind  lies  in  utter  isolation 
from  the  rest,  and  the  thoughts  and  principles  of 
modern  Christianity  are  attached  to  intellectual  clues 
which  run  back  through  far  pre-Christian  ages  to  the 
very  origin  of  human  civilization,  perhaps  even  of 
human  existence."  —  Primitive  Culture,  i,  421, 

Spencer  says; 

"  Of  religion,  then,  we  must  always  remember  that 
amid  its  many  errors  and  corruptions  it  has  asserted 
and  diffused  a  supreme  I'erify.    From   the  first,  the 

[     »°°     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

recognition  of  this  supreme  verity,  in  however  imper- 
fect a  manner,  has  been  its  vital  element;  and  its 
various  defects,  once  extreme  but  gradually  dimin- 
ishing, have  been  so  many  failures  to  recognize  in 
full  that  which  it  recognized  in  part.  The  truly  reli- 
gious element  of  religion  has  always  been  good  ;  that 
which  has  proved  untenable  in  doctrine  and  vicious 
in  practice  has  been  its  irreligious  element ;  and  from 
this  it  has  ever  been  undergoing  purification,"  —  First 
Principles,  p.  104. 

Religion  is  a  word  which  has  not  been 
clearly  defined.  It  has  one  meaning  to 
Jews,  another  to  Christians,  another  to 
Mohammedans,  another  to  Buddhists. 
Even  the  Christians  —  being  divided  into 
many  sects  —  hold  views  more  or  less  in 
conflict  concerning  the  meaning  of  reli- 
gion. The  lexicographers  have  defined  the 
word  timidly  and  haltingly,  drawing  no 
clear  distinction  between  religion  and 
theology. 

What  is  the  actual  meaning  of  the  great 
fact  which  we  call  religion  ?  Where  shall 
we  find  the  "  supreme  verity "  to  which 
[     •°'     ] 


BALANCE 

Mr.  Spencer  refers,  and  the  harmony  of 
which  Mr.  Tylor  speaks? 

It  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  dis- 
cover a  ground  of  agreement  in  all  of 
the  thought  of  the  world  concerning  reli- 
gion, for  the  tliinking  on  the  subject  has 
been  voluminous  and  endless,  good  and 
bad,  sane  and  insane.  Nor  slunild  we  ex- 
pect to  tind  an  essential  harmony  in  all 
religious  organizations,  great  and  small, 
temporary  and  permanent,  powerful  and 
insignificant.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  sect 
claiming  to  be  religious  is  really  irre- 
ligious. 

We  should  seek  for  the  essential  meaning 
of  religion  in  the  broad  principle  or  prin- 
ciples which  have  been  accepted  by  great 
masses  of  men  in  places  and  times  wide 
apart;  in  the  permanent  manifestations  of 
religious  sentiment,  and  in  the  instinctive, 
spontaneous  and  untaught  beliefs  common 
to  primitive  men  which  survive  in  more 
highly  developed  form  among  the  enlight- 
[     '°^    ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

ened.  And  we  must  seek  for  it  finally  in 
the  harmony  of  belief  in  the  great  religious 
organizations  now  in  existence;  for  they 
must  contain,  in  the  natural  order  of 
growth,  that  which  is  worthy  of  survival 
in  the  religious  faith  that  has  preceded 
them.  We  must  seek  for  the  meaning  of 
religion  in  the  agreements,  and  not  in  the 
disagreements,  among  believers. 

It  is  now  conceded  by  enlightened  the- 
ologians, as  well  as  by  philosophers,  that 
religious  institutions  and  beliefs  have  de- 
veloped through  the  universal  principle  of 
evolution.  And  it  follows  that,  as  the  oak 
is  something  more  complete  than  the 
acorn,  astronomy  than  astrology,  man  than 
the  ape,  so  we  shall  find  religious  beliefs 
to  be  more  perfectly  developed  in  enlight- 
enment than  in  savagery. 

"  For  a  principle  of  development,"  says 

Edward    Caird    (Evolution    of    Religion, 

pp.   43-45),   "necessarily  manifests  itself 

most  clearly  in  the  most  mature  form  of 

[     '°3     ] 


BALANCE 

that  whicli  develops.  ...  It  is  tlie  devel- 
oped organism  that  explains  the  germ 
from  which  it  grew.  .  .  .  We  must  find 
the  key  to  the  meaning  of  the  first  stage 
in  the  last." 

I.    The  Belief  that  the  Soul  is  Account- 
able for  its  Actions. 

"  I  entertain  a  good  hope,"  says  Socrates, 
*'  that  something  awaits  those  who  die,  and 
that,  as  was  said  long  since,  it  will  be  far 
better  for  the  good  than  the  evil." 

A  very  old  belief  —  which  grows  with 
man's  growth  and  strengthens  with  his 
enlightenment —  is  the  faith  that  he  is  ac- 
countable for  his  actions. 

Tylor,  who  doubts  that  the  doctrine  of 
compensation  was  universal  among  primi- 
tive races,  admits  that  it  existed  among 
man}',  and  that  it  extended  and  developed 
with  the  growth  of  mankind.    He  sa3's: 

"  A  comparison  of  doctrines  held  at  various  stages 
of  culture  may  justify  a  tentative  speculation  as  to 
[      •°4     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

their  actual  sequence  in  history,  favoring  the  opinion 
that  through  an  intermediate  stage  the  doctrine  of 
simple  future  existence  was  actually  developed  into 
the  doctrine  of  future  reward  and  punishment,  a 
transition  which,  for  deep  import  to  human  life,  has 
scarcely  its  rival  in  the  history  of  religion."  —  Primi- 
tive Culture,  ii.  84. 

D'Alviella  says: 

"  The  idea  of  a  judgment  of  the  dead,  to  which  the 
theory  of  rewards  and  punishments  naturally  leads  as 
its  culmination,  appears  to  have  found  its  way  into 
the  minds  even  of  very  backward  peoples." — Hib- 
bert  Lectures,  p.  193. 

Tangible  evidence  of  the  belief  in  ac- 
countability by  primitive  tribes  now  extinct 
being  lacking,  many  scientific  investigators 
deny  that  it  existed. 

Yet  these  investigators  agree  that  pro- 
pitiation was  an  universal  rite  among  the 
lowest  men,  that  it  developed  with  man's 
culture,  and  survives  even  to  the  present 
time.  Why  did  primitive  men  propitiate 
the  spirits  of  their  dead.^  And  why  did 
[     ^°5     ] 


BALANCE 

the  later  cults  propitiate  fetiches,  idols  and 
gods  ? 

Propitiation  is  offered  through  fear  to 
powers  to  which  one  acknowledges  ac- 
countability. The  culprit  propitiates  his 
judge,  the  slave  his  master,  the  subject 
his  ruler.  It  is  evident  that  the  motive 
strong  enough  and  general  enough  to  im- 
pel the  primitive  tribes  to  propitiate  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  must  have  been  based 
on  the  belief  that  man  was  accountable 
to  the  spirits,  whom  he  credited  with  ex- 
traordinary powers. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  sense  of  ac- 
countability was  in  the  nature  of  things 
the  first  religious  sentiment  in  the  mind  of 
man;  that  it  is  older  than  the  belief  in  a 
future  life  and  in  superhuman  powers;  that 
it  was  based  and  still  rests  upon  cause  and 
effect,  which  are  apparent  to  the  dull,  as 
well  as  to  the  enlightened;  that  the  lower 
men  perceived  that  the  fruits  of  certain 
acts  and  things  were  good  and  of  others 
[     '°6     ] 


I 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

bad,  and  that  this  perception  led  inevita- 
bly, in  the  infancy  of  thought,  to  the  recog- 
nition of  the  law  of  consequences^  which 
is  the  law  of  accountability,  of  rewards 
and  penalties. 

The  knowledge  of  primitive  man  begins 
with  cause  and  efTect.  He  discovers  that 
water  quenches  thirst,  game  is  found  under 
certain  conditions,  a  cave  gives  shelter, 
friction  brings  fire,  the  sun  yields  heat 
and  light,  some  plants  are  poisonous,  frost 
withers,  lightning  kills. 

The  first  lesson  learned  by  the  infant 
is  connected  with  cause  and  effect.  The 
mother  is  the  source  of  food,  the  cause  of 
protection.  Later  the  child  learns  that 
through  effort  it  can  walk;  that  some 
things  are  hurtful  and  others  helpful; 
some  bitter,  some  sweet;  some  heavy, 
some  light.  It  discovers  that  some  actions 
are  beneficial  and  may  be  safely  repeated; 
that  others  are  injurious  and  should  be 
avoided.  The  beneficial  it  recognizes  as 
[     '°7     ] 


BALANCE 

good,  the  harmful  as  evil.  That  which 
hurts,  even  if  inanimate,  the  child  would 
punish;  that  which  is  pleasant  it  rewards 
at  least  with  a  smile.  The  baby  becomes 
a  judge,  and  gives  forth  verdicts.  Before 
it  can  speak  its  first  word,  it  knows  much 
instinctively  of  cause  and  effect,  of  good 
and  evil,  recognizes  the  utilit}'  of  rewards 
and  penalties,  and  realizes  dimly  its  own 
accountability. 

The  brute  also,  in  proportion  to  its  in- 
telligence, understands  cause  and  effect; 
it  recognizes  its  enemies,  comprehends  its 
own  weakness  and  strength,  declines  con- 
flict save  on  terms  favorable  to  itself,  and 
knows  the  distinction  in  numerous  cases 
between  things  harmful  and  things  bene- 
ficial. The  wisest  man  is  distinguished  in- 
tellectually from  the  lower  men,  and  from 
the  brutes,  by  his  superior  knowledge  of 
cause  and  effect  and  of  the  distinctions  be- 
tween good  and  evil. 

Man's  belief  in  his  accountability  —  that 
[     'OS    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

is,  in  cause  and  effect  —  is  fundamental.  It 
begins  with  his  first  rational  consideration 
of  his  relations  to  the  external  world  and 
to  the  order  of  Nature,  which  he  will  later 
deify.  Nature  has  two  imperative  com- 
mands which  primitive  man  hears  con- 
stantly—"  Thou  shalt"  and  "Thou  shalt 
not."  As  his  mind  grows,  the  horizon  of 
his  accountability  extends  until  it  passes 
beyond  the  confines  of  this  life.  Believing 
in  his  own  survival  of  death,  he  anticipates 
that  in  the  after-life  it  will  be  "far  better 
for  the  good  than  the  evil." 

It  would  be  a  reasonable  assumption 
that  the  theories  of  a  superhuman  power 
or  powers,  of  potent  spirits,  fetiches,  idols, 
of  many  gods,  and  finally  of  one  God,  grew 
out  of  man's  feeling  of  accountability.  His 
sense  of  accountability  forced  him  to  be- 
lieve that  he  was  responsible  to  some 
power  which  sets  things  right.  Man  has 
been  so  impressed  usually  by  his  accounta- 
bility for  his  sins  —  by  "  the  dread  of  some- 
[     '°9    ] 


BALANCE 

thing  after  death"  —  that  he  has  sought 
means  of  escape  from  it  as  he  would  from 
wild  beasts,  from  flood  or  from  tire. 

D'Alviella  (Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  179) 
says  that  religion  from  the  first  "  de- 
veloped a  spirit  of  subordination"  and 
"favored  the  sacrifice  of  a  direct  and  im- 
mediate satisfaction  to  a  greater  but  more 
distant  and  indirect  good." 

The  theory  of  "  a  standard  of  duty  pre- 
scribed by  something  loftier  than  imme- 
diate advantage,"  as  Brinton  expresses  it, 
which  was  recognized  dimly  and  roughly 
by  the  lower  tribes,  has  been  accepted  by 
all  later  forms  of  faith. 

We  find  the  doctrine  that  the  soul  is 
accountable  for  its  actions  bedded  in 
the  foundations  of  religion,  entering  com- 
pletely into  the  life  here  and  into  the  life 
hereafter.  It  lies  at  the  base  of  all  religious 
theories  of  reward  and  retribution,  of  a 
day  of  judgment,  of  salvation  and  dam- 
nation, of  heaven  and  hell. 
[     ''o    ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

2.    The  Belief  that  the  Soul  survives  the 
Death  of  the  Body. 

Tylor  claims  (Primitive  Culture,  i.  424) 
"  as  a  minimum  definition  of  religion,  the 
belief  in  spiritual  beings^''  which  ap- 
pears (p.  425)  "among  all  low  races  with 
whom  we  have  attained  to  thoroughly  in- 
timate relations."  He  defines  "  the  belief 
in  spiritual  beings  "  (p.  427)  as  including 
in  its  full  development  "  the  belief  in  souls 
and  in  a  future  stated 

This  belief,  he  says  (p.  426),  is  '■'■  the 
groundwork  of  the  -philosophy  of  reli- 
gion, from  that  of  savages  up  to  that  of 
civilized  man;"  and  constitutes  (p.  427) 
*'  an  ancient  and  world-wide  philosophy." 

Grant  Allen  says : 

"  Religion,  however,  has  one  element  within  it  still 
older,  more  fundamental,  and  more  persistent  than 
any  mere  belief  in  a  God  or  gods  —  nay,  even  than 
the  custom  of  supplicating  and  appeasing  ghosts  or 
gods  by  gifts  and  observances.  That  element  is  the 
conception  of  the  life  of  the  dead.  On  the  primitive 
[     "^     ] 


BALANCE 

belief  in  such  a  life  all  religion  ultimately  bases  itself. 
The  belief  is  in  fact  the  earliest  thing  to  appear  in 
religion,  for  there  are  savage  tribes  who  have  nothing 
worth  calling  gods,  but  have  still  a  religion  or  cult 
of  their  dead  relatives."  —  The  Evolution  of  the  Idea 
of  God,  p.  42. 

Brinton  says: 

"  I  shall  tell  you  of  religions  so  crude  as  to  have 
no  temples  or  altars,  no  rites  or  prayers  ;  but  I  can 
tell  you  of  none  that  does  not  teach  the  belief  of  the 
intercommunion  of  the  spiritual  powers  and  man." 

—  Religions  of  Primitive  Peoples,  p.  50. 

D'Alviella  says: 

"  The  discoveries  of  the  last  five-and-twenty  j'ears, 
especially  in  the  caves  of  France  and  Belgium,  have 
established  conclusively  that  as  early  as  the  mam- 
moth age  man  practiced  funeral  rites,  believed  ifi  a 
future  life,  and  possessed  fetiches  and  perhaps  even 
idols."  —  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  15. 

Huxley  says: 

"There  are  savages  without  God  in  any  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  but  there  are  none  without  ghosts." 

—  Lay  Sermons  and  Addresses,  p.  163. 

Spencer  says  that  the  conception  of  the 
soul's  survival  of  physical  death, 
[     ^'^     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

"  along  with  the  multiplying  and  complicating  ideas 
arising  from  it,  we  find  everywhere  —  alike  in  the 
arctic  regions  and  the  tropics ;  in  the  forests  of  North 
America  and  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia ;  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Himalayas  and  in  African  jungles  ;  on  the 
flanks  of  the  Andes  and  in  the  Polynesian  islands. 
It  is  exhibited  with  equal  clearness  by  races  so  re- 
mote in  type  from  one  another  that  competent  judges 
think  they  must  have  diverged  before  the  existing 
distribution  of  land  and  sea  was  established  —  among 
straight  haired,  curly  haired,  woolly  haired  races ; 
among  white,  tawny,  copper  colored,  black.  And  we 
find  it  among  peoples  who  have  made  no  advances 
in  civilization  as  well  as  among  the  semi-civilized 
and  the  civilized."  —  Sociology,  ii.  689. 

Some  recognition  of  the  doctrine  of  a 
future  life  is  found  in  the  religious  cults, 
ancient  and  modern,  of  which  we  have  ac- 
curate knowledge.  Even  the  ancient  He- 
brews, whose  faith  was  more  materialistic 
doubtless  than  any  other  that  is  known  to 
us,  believed  in  spirits  within  and  without 
men,  that  Elijah  "  went  up  by  a  whirlwind 
into  heaven,"  that  the  dead  Samuel  ap- 
peared to  Saul,  that  "  the  Lord  killeth  and 
[     ^'3     ] 


BALANCE 

maketh  alive:  he  bringeth  down  to  the 
grave,  and  bringeth  iip,""  and  that  all  souls 
went  at  death  to  a  vague  and  shadowy 
hereafter  which  could  not  be  called  life, 
and  yet  was  not  complete  annihilation.  The 
modern  Hebrews  repudiate  the  material- 
ism of  early  Judaism.  For  more  than  six 
hundred  years  the  Jewish  church  has  ac- 
cepted the  doctrine  of  "  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead  "  in  the  creed  of  Maimonides. 

In  the  same  way  the  Chinese  have  re- 
pudiated Confucius.  While  the  thought  of 
Confucius  is  materialistic,  the  Chinese  re- 
ligions are  profoundly  spiritualistic.  Not 
even  Confucius,  the  adored  and  venerated 
philosopher  of  the  Chinese,  nor  the  writers 
of  the  Old  Testament,  could  wean  their 
followers  permanently  from  the  instinctive 
belief  in  a  future  life. 

Instinctive      religion  —  that    which     is 

permanent  and  untaught  as  distinguished 

from  that  which  is  temporary,  isolated,  or 

based  on  speculation  or  authority — toler- 

[     ••+    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

ates  no  limitation  upon  the  after-life  of 
man.  Here  and  there  some  teacher  or 
prophet  has  proclaimed  that  only  women, 
or  the  married,  or  the  great  or  the  good, 
or  even  that  no  one,  will  survive  death, 
but  such  theories  have  left  no  permanent 
impression  upon  the  religious  convic- 
tions of  mankind.  The  modern  religious 
organizations  of  substance  and  permanence 
hold  that  all  mankind  will  survive  death. 
We  may  conclude,  in  the  light  of  all  the 
facts  obtainable,  that  the  belief  in  a  future 
life  —  that  the  soul  survives  the  death  of 
the  body  —  is  a  fundamental  precept  of 
religion. 

3.    The  Belief  in  a  Supreme  Power  that 
rights  Things. 

The  belief  in  superhuman  influences  and 
powers  has  been  and  continues  to  be  uni- 
versal, accepted  alike  by  the  lowest  savage 
and  the  highest  philosopher;  by  the  deist, 
pantheist  and  atheist,  as  well  as  by  the  the- 
[     1^5     ] 


BALANCE 

ist.  Primitive  man  had  a  low  or  dull  con- 
ception of  the  overruling  power.  Some- 
times he  located  it  in  a  pebble  or  great 
rock;  in  a  hill  or  mountain;  in  the  dawn, 
sun,  moon  or  stars  ;  in  a  mummy  or  idol; 
in  his  own  ancestor;  even  in  animals,  fishes 
or  reptiles.  In  whatever  form  he  recog- 
nized it,  however,  it  was  to  him  a  power 
that  rights  things,  a  beneficence  to  which 
he  offered  sacrifices  and  implorations. 

The  primitive  interpretations  of  the  su- 
preme energy  improved  with  man's  growth 
in  culture.  The  lower  conceptions  gave 
way  to  something  better,  and  these  to  some- 
thing still  better — fetichism  to  idolatry, 
idolatry  to  polytheism,  polytheism  to  mon- 
otheism. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Buddhism  is 
a  godless  religion,  and  this  assertion  has 
been  used  as  a  foundation  for  the  assump- 
tion that  a  belief  in  God  is  not  fundamen- 
tal in  religion.  It  may  be  that  Buddhism 
recognizes  no  supreme  being,  but  it  is 
[     "6     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

not  true  that  Buddhism  recognizes  no 
power  or  powers  that  right  things.  No 
religion  recognizes  more  completely  than 
Buddhism  the  eternal  forces  of  reward  and 
retribution,  as  is  illustrated  in  Karma,  the 
law  of  just  consequences. 

Religion  deals  fundamentally  with  the 
order  and  regulation  of  humankind,  with 
their  present,  past  and  future.  It  has  as- 
sumed naturally,  indeed  necessarily,  that 
man  is  subject  to  some  order  or  ruler 
possessed  of  unlimited  power.  While  the 
lower  cults  have  recognized  in  the  fetich 
or  idol  a  force  which  is  helpful  of  or  con- 
siderate to  mankind,  the  more  elevated 
races  and  sects  have  attributed  more  sub- 
lime qualities  to  the  supreme  force.  A 
divine  power  is  recognized  in  Varuna, 
the  chief  deity  of  the  early  Aryans;  in 
Brahma,  the  absolute  of  the  Hindoos;  in 
Jehovah,  the  almighty  of  the  Hebrews 
and  Christians;  in  Odin,  the  all-father  of 
the  Norsemen;  in  Zeus,  the  highest  deity 
[     ''7     ] 


BALANCE 

of  the  Greeks;  in  Jupiter,  the  chief  God 
of  the  Romans;  in  Allah,  the  one  God  of 
the  IMohammedans.  The  strongest  words 
expressive  of  beneficence  and  omnipo- 
tence are  applied  habitually  to  God  —  the 
providence,  the  divine,  the  infinite,  the 
eternal,  the  all-powerful,  the  all-present, 
the  all-hoi}',  the  immutable,  the  most  high, 
the  ruler  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  king 
of  kings,  the  light  of  the  world,  the  sun  of 
righteousness.  We  may  safely  claim  that 
the  belief  in  a  sup7'eme  power  thai  rights 
thing's  is  fundamental  in  religion. 


[     1.8     ] 


XIV 

The  Fundamental  Meaning  of  Religion  is  revealed 
by  its  History — Religion  recognizes  that  Right 
rules  the  World —  Science  recognizes  that  Balance 
rules  the  World  —  Religion  and  Science  are  in 
Harmony,  not  in  Conflict. 

WE  have,  then,  three  fundamental 
reHgious  beliefs: 

I.    That  the  soul  is  account^ 
able  for  its  actions. 

2.  That  the  soul  survives  the  death  of 
the  body, 

2,.  In  a  supreme  power  that  rights 
things. 

The  belief  that  the  soul  is  accountable 
for  its  actions^  is  the  recognition  that  the 
law  of  consequences  applies  to  the  indi- 
vidual soul,  that  the  good  shall  fare  better 
than  the  evil,  that  men  shall  reap  as  they 
sow. 

The  belief  that  the  soul  survives  the 
[     ''9     ] 


BALANCE 

death  of  the  body,  is  the  recognition  that 
accountability  does  not  end  with  the  death 
of  the  body;  that  the  wrongs  which  are  not 
righted  here  must  be  righted  elsewhere; 
that  the  good  which  is  not  rewarded  here 
must  be  rewarded  hereafter;  that  there  can 
be  no  break  in  the  processes  of  account- 
abilit}-.  As  science  assumes  that  cause  and 
effect,  action  and  reaction,  motion  and 
transform.ation,  are  ceaseless  in  the  ph3's- 
ical  world,  so  religion  assumes  that  cause 
and  effect,  actions  and  consequences,  are 
ceaseless  in  the  soul  of  the  individual. 
The  religious  doctrine  of  ceaseless  moral 
accountability  is  identical  with  the  scien- 
tific doctrine  of  ceaseless  cause  and  effect. 
The  belief  /;/  a  supreme  power  that 
rights  things^  is  the  necessary  corollary  of 
the  two  preceding  beliefs.  The  doctrines 
that  the  actions  of  the  individual  will  be 
balanced  by  their  consequences,  and  that 
this  process  does  not  cease  with  death, 
include  the  recognition  of  a  supreme 
[     >^°    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

power  of  Tightness  —  a  -power  that  rights 
things. 

Combined,  read  from  one  into  the  other, 
what  is  the  message  conveyed  by  these 
three  fundamental  religious  beliefs  ?  Are 
they  in  harmony  or  in  conflict?  is  the 
message  discordant,  or  feeble,  or  subtle, 
or  unworthy  of  the  great  fact  which  we 
call  religion?  or  is  it  harmonious,  simple 
and  clear,  a  noble  interpretation  of  divine 
truth?  This  is  the  message  of  the  three 
religious  beliefs:  That  man  is  account- 
able for  his  actions;  that  he  is  subject 
ceaselessly  to  the  law  of  jicst  conse- 
quences^ to  a  supreme  power  of  rightness. 
The  message  is  so  clear  and  simple  that 
it  may  even  be  more  briefly  expressed 
as  the  declaration  that  right  rules  the 
world. 

This  interpretation  of   the  meaning  of 

religion  is  not  the    interpretation  of    one 

sect  or  church,  of  one  time  or  place;  it  is 

the  interpretation  of  all  sects  and  churches 

[     '^'     ] 


BALANCE 

that  can  be  classed  as  religious,  and  of  all 
times  and  places  in  which  religion  has 
been  manifest.  It  is  not  the  product  of 
speculation  or  inspiration;  it  is  the  product 
of  all  human  experience  bearing  upon  the 
subject  of  religion.  The  meaning  of  re- 
ligion, the  message  of  religion,  is  found  in 
its  own  history.  Reliiiion  contains  within 
itself  its  own  story,  as  the  rocks  contain 
within  themselves  their  own  story.  The 
message  of  religion  is  not  vague,  difficult 
or  unworthy;  it  is  plain,  eas}'  to  compre- 
hend; it  is  lofty  and  good.  Mankind's 
recognition  of  religion  as  something  holy, 
sacred  and  divine  is  fully  justified  by  the 
interpretation  of  religion  revealed  by  the 
history  of  religion  —  ihat  I'ighf  rules  the 
world. 

We  have  observed  the  harmony  in  the 
scientific  interpretations  of  the  sj'stem  of 
Nature — that  each  interpretation  points 
unerringly  to  a  higher  and  single  interpre- 
tation. And  we  now  observe  the  same 
[     >2^    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

harmony  in  the  fundamental  conceptions 
of  religion,  which  point  with  equal  certi- 
tude to  a  conclusion  in  unity  with  the  su- 
preme interpretation  reached  by  science. 

Religion,  dealing  with  the  essential  obli- 
gations and  relations  of  man,  rests  with 
the  recognition  of  eternal  justice  —  that 
right  rules  the  ivorld.  Science,  dealing 
with  all  truth,  with  the  explanation  and 
reconciliation  of  all  phenomena,  advances 
to  a  still  broader  position  —  that  balance 
rules  the  world —  a  position  so  broad  that 
it  includes  the  fundamental  grounds  of  re- 
ligion. 

Religion  and  science  are  in  harmony, 
not  in  conflict.  They  have  never  been  in 
real  conflict.  The  appearance  of  conflict 
has  been  due  to  the  misunderstanding  and 
misinterpretation  of  both  religion  and  sci- 
ence through  the  ages  in  which  men  have 
been  groping  and  toiling  upward  from 
darkness  to  light. 

[     123     ] 


XV 

Religion  has  been  misinterpreted  and  perverted  — 
Science  also  has  been  misinterpreted  and  per- 
verted —  Religion  answers  for  its  Perversions  as 
Science,  Truth  and  Right  answer  for  their  Per- 
versions—  The  Value  of  a  Truth  is  measured  by 
the  Magnitude  of  its  Perversions. 

SCIENCE  is  the  search  for  truth;  it 
measures  all  things  by  truth,  has  no 
other  standard  than  truth.  As  truth 
never  conflicts  with  truth,  the  demonstra- 
tions of  science  arc  necessarily  harmoni- 
ous, the  same  original  demonstration  often 
being  reached  by  strangers  wide  apart. 
Science  consists  of  a  stupendous  unity 
linking  the  smallest  and  most  obscure 
truths  with  higher  truths,  and  these  with 
still  higher  truths,  on  to  their  connection 
with  fundamental  truth.  The  achieve- 
ments of  science  are  due  to  tlie  methods 
of  science  —  to  experimentation,  investi- 
[     124    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

gation,  critical  examination  —  to  the  pa- 
tient weighing  of  facts  by  the  standard  of 
truth. 

Religious  thought  has  evolved  necessa- 
rily on  other  lines.  The  problems  of  re- 
ligion —  the  war  between  good  and  evil, 
the  mystery  of  life  and  death,  the  nature 
of  superhuman  powers,  of  the  government 
of  the  world,  of  the  future  state,  of  man's 
accountability  —  have  appealed  with  con- 
tinuous force  to  the  interest  and  imagina- 
tion of  men.  The  yearning  to  know  was 
gratified  in  the  beginning  by  savage  dream- 
ers and  mystics,  who  assumed  to  be,  or 
believed  themselves  to  be,  inspired  to  utter 
divine  truth.  Religion  has  been  inter- 
preted by  sorcerers  and  by  sages,  by  im- 
postors and  by  truth-seekers,  by  dull  and 
by  exalted  minds.  Some  of  the  interpreta- 
tions are  childish  or  base ;  others  supply  to 
us  our  highest  conceptions  of  honor,  duty 
and  responsibility.  Great  systems  of  faith 
grew  up,  each  claiming  to  be  built  upon 
[     1^5     ] 


BALANCE 


sacred  and  infallible  authority.  The  re- 
ligious spirit  is  reverential  and  steadfast; 
men  have  yielded  slowl}'  the  faith  of  their 
fathers.  The  Hebrews  accept  one  author- 
ity, the  Buddhists  another,  the  Christians 
another,  the  Mohammedans  another,  and 
other  authorities  are  accepted  by  other 
believers.  Men  have  measured  religious 
truth  by  authority,  not  authority  by  truth. 
Each  of  the  great  S3'stems  of  faith  assumes 
the  perfect  truth  of  its  own  authority,  and 
denies  the  truth  of  all  authority  except  its 
own,  thereby  admitting  the  existence  of 
false  authorities,  false  prophets  and  the 
worship  of  false  gods. 

Admitting  many  contradictions  and  im- 
perfections in  the  interpretation  of  religion, 
shall  we  conclude  that  there  is  no  truth  in 
religion?  Grant  numberless  errors  and 
impostures,  must  we  say  that  all  religion 
is  error  and  imposture?  Let  us  be  as  fair 
to  religion  as  to  science.  Have  no  errors 
or  impostures  been  advanced  in  the  name 
[      '^6     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

of  science  ?  Consider  only  that  branch  of 
science  which  deals  with  healing.  Have 
there  been  no  false  doctors  in  the  world  ? 
no  errors  in  determining  the  cause  and 
cure  of  disease  ?  no  medical  zealots,  in- 
flamed with  a  fanatical  regard  for  their 
own  methods,  and  with  enmity  for  other 
methods?  no  conflicting  schools  of  medi- 
cal thought?  Because  of  the  errors,  im- 
postures and  strife  known  to  exist  among 
those  engaged  in  the  art  of  healing,  do 
people  of  intelligence  conclude  that  the 
science  of  medicine  consists  wholly  of  er- 
ror, delusion  and  imposture  ?  that  it  has 
discovered  no  antidotes,  no  laws  of  health, 
no  causes  of  disease?  that  sanitation  and 
surgery  have  no  merit? 

The  record  of  the  science  of  healing 
contains  superstitions  as  dull  and  rites  as 
base  as  the  lowest  religious  cults;  indeed, 
the  false  medicine  man  and  the  false  pro- 
phet have  often  been  one  and  the  same. 
Men  have  sought  the  healer  of  the  body 
[     1^7     ] 


BALANCE 

because  of  their  fear  of  the  consequences 
of  physical  disease;  they  have  sought  the 
healer  of  the  soul  because  of  their  dread 
of  the  consequences  of  moral  disease.  The 
healers,  physical  and  spiritual,  have  dealt 
sometimes  in  nostrums,  exorcisms,  con- 
jurations and  sorceries;  and  again  in  bet- 
ter remedies  which,  on  the  one  hand,  have 
alleviated  pain,  cured  disease  and  saved 
life,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  have  strength- 
ened men  in  right-doing,  purified  them, 
given  them  noble  ideals  of  life  and  duty, 
and  comforted  them  in  trouble,  sorrow, 
bereavement,  agony,  and  in  the  face  of 
death. 

Let  us  not  underweigh  the  fact  that 
men  have  believed  in  their  souls,  in  life 
after  death,  in  responsibility  that  does  not 
end,  in  an  unbroken  chain  of  cause  and 
effect,  in  eternal  justice  —  that  they  have 
spanned  the  abyss  of  death  with  a  bridge 
of  faith  leading  to  a  land  where  the  ine- 
qualities, misunderstandings  and  wrongs  of 
[     '^8    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

this  life  may  be  righted.  Intuition,  instinct, 
or  some  other  form  of  insight,  sometimes 
anticipates  science.  The  supreme  law  of 
compensation,  which  the  early  mystics 
recognized  through  that  happy  insight  by 
which  men  grasp  truth  which  they  cannot 
yet  demonstrate,  science  recognizes  also 
after  thousands  of  years  of  investigation 
and  experimentation. 

Let  us  not  be  impatient.  Civilization 
was  not  made  in  a  day.  Our  sciences  have 
been  built  slowly;  they  are  not  yet  com- 
pleted, and  we  must  assume  that  they  never 
will  be  completed,  unless  it  be  possible 
that  a  time  will  come  when  truth  will  be 
exhausted.  The  search  for  truth  has  been 
slow  and  difficult,  and  many  are  the  errors 
into  which  men  have  fallen.  "  The  laws  of 
Plato,"  says  Lecky,  "  of  the  twelve  tables, 
of  the  consuls,  of  the  emperors,  and  of  all 
nations  and  legislators  —  Persian,  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Latin,  German,  French,  Italian, 
Spanish,  English  —  decreed  capital  penal- 
[     J29    ] 


BALANCE 

ties  against  sorcerers."  When  IMontaigne 
denounced  the  belief  in  witchcraft  as  a  de- 
lusion, its  existence  was  accepted  by  the 
foremost  magistrates,  physicians  and  scien- 
tific men  of  France.  Bacon  regarded  the 
Copernican  theor\-  as  a  strange  fancy. 
Kepler,  who  discovered  the  laws  of  plane- 
tar}-  motion,  believed  tliat  a  spirit  guided 
the  movements  of  each  planet.  The  chem- 
ists of  the  eighteenth  century  up  to  the 
time  of  Lavoisier  believed  in  the  theor}- 
of  "  phlogiston,"  a  curious  error.  Priest- 
ley, the  discoverer  of  oxygen,  died  a  firm 
believer  in  phlogiston.  Guyton  de  INIor- 
veau,  Macquer  and  others  taught  that 
phlogiston  was  something  that  weighed 
less  than  nothing!  Political  science  has 
not  yet  discovered  a  way  of  governing  an 
American  city  honestly  and  efficiently,  nor 
has  economic  science  reformed  the  in- 
equitable distribution  of  wealth.  The  phi- 
losophers of  the  world,  from  the  beginning 
of  philosophy  to  the  present  day,  have 
[     uo    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

reached  no  agreement  concerning  the 
motives  of  human  actions  or  the  meaning 
of  morals. 

Science  has  achieved  much,  but  it  is  not 
at  the  end,  or  nearthe,end,  of  achievement. 
It  has  struggled  up  from  small  beginnings; 
scientific  men,  wise  men  in  their  day,  have 
accepted  error.  Science  is  not  responsible 
for  their  errors;  science  has  nothing  to  do 
with  error  but  to  reject  it.  And  so  reli- 
gious men  have  accepted  error,  and  reli- 
gion is  not  responsible  for  their  mistakes. 
It  seems  sometimes  as  if  men  must  try  all 
wrong  ways,  in  every  line  of  advancement, 
before  they  can  find  the  right  way. 

The  interpretations  of  religion  have  dealt 
with  the  questions:  How  does  right  rule 
the  world?  How  will  justice  be  done  to 
the  individual  soul?  It  is  not  strange  that 
there  have  been  numerous  and  conflicting^ 
answers  to  these  questions;  and  that  many 
of  these  answers  are  crude  and  ignorant, 
and  some  even  monstrous  and  forbidding. 
[     M'     ] 


BALANCE 

The  primitive  mystics,  recognizing  dimly 
the  law  of  consequences,  clothed  it  in  sj-m- 
bols  adapted  to  their  own  comprehension 
and  to  the  comprehension  of  their  kind  — 
in  fetiches  and  idols,  in  straifge  gods,  in 
numberless  forms  of  penance  and  propitia- 
tion, in  curious  judgments,  rewards  and 
penalties,  in  heavens  and  hells  which  were 
circumscribed  only  by  the  limits  of  their 
imaginations.  This  may  be  said  to  their 
credit:  they  recognized  rewards  and  pen- 
alties,  recompense  and  retribution,  heaven 
and  hell.  Their  lowest  conceptions  of  a 
future  state  included  some  recog-nition  of 
moral  responsibility  and  of  the  supremacy 
of  justice.  I  do  not  despise  their  efforts. 
They  expressed  man's  greatest  hope  —  that 
right  rules  the  world  —  in  terms  which 
they  could  understand.  They  could  do  no 
more.  If  that  hope  —  I  would  prefer  to  say 
that  truth  —  had  waited  for  its  complete 
and  perfect  exposition,  it  would  doubtless 
be  unexpressed  to  this  da}'. 
[     '3^    ] 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

The  earlier  symbols  gave  way  to  better 
symbols,  and  these  to  still  better;  in  time, 
doubtless,  all  religious  symbols  will  give 
way  to  the  truth  which  they  symbol  ize.  En- 
lightenment grows;  superstition  dwindles. 
Thought  grows  clearer.  Many  creeds  have 
been  revised.  The  doctrines  of  a  hell  of 
literal  fire,  and  of  eternal  torment,  have 
been  abandoned  by  enlightened  people. 
This  advance  must  continue  until  the 
churches  of  civilization  shall  abandon  the 
lastform,  rite,  ceremony  and  doctrine  which 
stand  in  conflict  with  the  fundamental  reli- 
gious principle  that  right  rules  the  world." 
They  must  in  time  accept  the  book  of  Na- 
ture as  the  book  of  God,  and  recognize  that 
the  truth-finders  are  God's  prophets  —  that 
truth,  wherever  and  whenever  discovered, 
is  the  infallible  revelation  of  God  —  that 
religious  truth  can  be  demonstrated  only 
by  reason,  and  that  God's  justice  must  be 
proved  by  the  processes  of  Nature  if  it 
is  to  be  proved  at  all  —  that  God's  jus- 
[     133     ] 


BALANCE 

tice,  omnipotence  and  omnipresence  can 
be  proved  more  perfectly  by  the  fact 
that  cause  and  effect  are  equivalent,  com- 
pensator}-,  ceaseless,  all-powerful  and  all- 
present,  than  by  any  sacred  book  —  that 
science,  in  its  fundamental  interpretation 
of  the  s}stem  of  Nature,  in  its  sublime 
conception  of  the  permanence,  uniformity 
and  rectitude  of  the  world-order,  must  be 
accepted  as  the  defender,  and  not  as  the 
antagonist,  of  religion.  There  is  no  con- 
flict in  the  revelations  of  Nature.  In  all 
times  and  places.  Nature's  laws  have  been 
the  same,  and  truth  the  same.  Never  has 
Nature  altered  or  truth  changed. 

Religion  has  been  misinterpreted ;  it 
has  also  been  perverted.  While  there  are 
no  cults  known  to  us  which  do  not  recog- 
nize the  law  of  consequences,  there  are 
many  which  teach  that  it  can  be  evaded 
—  that  the  favor  of  God  can  be  gained 
by  means  other  than  by  right-doing. 
And,  in  the  name  of  religion,  learning 
[     '.H    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

has  been  persecuted,  freedom  suppressed, 
great  and  cruel  wars  have  been  waged, 
and  monstrous  crimes  committed  —  in- 
cluding torture  and  many  forms  of  mur- 
der, from  the  slaughter  of  children  on  the 
sacrificial  altar  to  the  butchery  of  sects 
and  communities.  How  shall  religion 
answer  for  these  evasions,  iniquities  and 
atrocities  ? 

Wrong  seeks  to  disguise  itself  under 
the  cloak  of  right;  tyrants  claim  to  be 
good,  not  bad;  privilege,  slavery,  the  sup- 
pression of  thought,  are  represented  by 
their  beneficiaries  to  be  right,  not  wrong 
—  to  be  good  even  for  the  unprivileged, 
the  enslaved  and  the  shackled.  Error  dis- 
guises itself  as  truth.  The  liar  does  not 
say,  "  I  am  telling  you  a  lie;  "  he  says,  "  I 
am  telling  you  the  truth."  The  misinter- 
preters  of  history,  biography,  philosophy 
and  science  do  not  label  their  misinter- 
pretations as  errors;  they  proclaim  them 
as  truths. 

[     '35     ] 


BALANCE 

Religion  must  answer  for  its  perver- 
sions as  right  answers  for  the  perversions 
of  right,  as  truth  answers  for  the  perver- 
sions of  truth,  as  science  answers  for  the 
perversions  of  science.  Right  answers 
that  its  perversions  are  wrong,  not  right; 
truth  answers  that  its  perversions  are  er- 
rors, not  truth;  science  answers  that  its 
perversions  are  unscientific,  not  scientific; 
religion  answers  that  its  perversions  are 
irreligious,  not  religious. 

Onl}'  good  and  truth  can  be  perverted. 
The  value  and  quality  of  a  good  or  truth 
—  the  usefulness  of  the  art  of  healing,  the 
nobility  of  toleration  and  justice,  the  value 
of  science  —  are  measured  with  accuracy 
by  the  wide  extent  of  its  perversions.  And 
so  also  the  usefulness,  nobility  and  value 
of  religion  are  indicated  by  the  magnitude 
of  its  perversions.  I  believe  that  the  per- 
versions of  religion  —  unequaled  as  they 
are  in  magnitude  b}-  any  other  record  of 
perversion  —  point  unerringly  to  the  con- 
[     '36    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

elusion  that   religion   rests  fundamentally 
upon  a  great  and  noble  truth. 

Religion  is  single,  not  plural.  There  is 
only  one  religion.  The  creeds  written,  the 
acts  done,  in  the  name  of  religion  are  re- 
ligious in  so  far  as  they  conform  to  the 
fundamental  religious  principle  that  right 
rules  the  world;  they  are  irreligious  in  so 
far  as  they  are  in  conflict  with  that  prin- 
ciple. 


[     '37     ] 


XVI 

Measuring  the  Value  of  Religion  by  its  Denial  — 
Only  One  School  of  Thought  denies  Religion  — 
Materialism  is  the  Doctrine  that  Wrong  rules  the 
World  —  Science  and  Religion  meet  on  Grounds 
of  Life,  not  Death ;  of  Persistence,  not  Annihila- 
tion ;  of  Right,  not  Wrong ;  on  the  Ground  that  the 
Laws  of  Nature  are  Uniform,  not  Contradictory. 

WE  can  measure  the  strength  or 
weakness    of    religion    by    the 
strength  or  weakness  of  its  op- 
posite, its  denial.    If  religion  be  strong,  its 
denial  will  be  weak;  if  religion  be  weak, 
its  denial  will  be  strong. 

The  denial  that  right  rules  the  world  is 
the  affirmation  that  wrong  rules  the  world. 
The  assumption  that  wrong  rules  the  world 
has  no  foundation  in  the  demonstrations  of 
science  —  which  point  unerringly  to  the 
return  of  equivalence  and  compensation  in 
the  processes  of  Nature  —  and  has  had 
[      '38     ]        ' 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  VERITY 

slight  recognition  in  human  thought.  It  is 
true  that  men  have  held  beliefs  which  lead 
logically  to  the  conclusion  that  wrong 
rules  the  world,  but  there  have  been  few 
who  could  accept  that  conclusion.  No 
school  of  thought  proclaims  it,  and  it  rarely 
secures  lodgment  in  the  human  mind  save 
as  the  consequence  of  pessimism  or  mis- 
fortune. We  must  conclude  that  the  denial 
of  relisrion  which  takes  form  in  the  asser- 
tion  that  wrong  rules  the  world  is  weak, 
not  strong. 

The  existence  of  a  supreme  power  — 
whether  it  be  accepted  as  personal  or  as 
impersonal,  as  knowable  or  as  unknowable 
—  is  universally  recognized.  It  is  usually 
assumed  to  be  a  power  of  rightness.  It 
could  not  be  called  a  power  of  wrongness 
without  accepting  the  weak  conclusion 
that  wrong  rules  the  world. 

The  assumption  that  man  is,  or  should 
be,  accountable  for  his  actions,  is  recog- 
nized in  our  civil  and  criminal  laws,  which 
[     ^39    ] 


BALANCE 

enforce  penalties  upon  wrong-doing,  and 
compel  men  to  keep  their  contracts  and 
pay  their  debts;  in  our  moral  code,  and  in 
our  judgments  concerning  right  and  wrong. 
The  alternative,  that  men  should  not  reap 
as  the}'  sow,  should  not  enjoy  what  they 
earn,  should  not  suffer  for  their  evil  acts, 
is  recosfnized  nowhere.  A  few  believe 
that  wrong:  does  rule  the  world,  but  no 
one  can  believe  that  wrong  should  rule 
the  world. 

Only  one  fundamental  religious  belief 
—  the  belief  in  a  future  life  —  is  denied 
with  force  or  persistence.  Many  men,  in- 
cludino:  some  of  the  crreat  intellects  of  the 
world,  from  Confucius  to  Herbert  Spencer, 
have  doubted  or  denied  that  the  soul  sur- 
vives the  death  of  the  bod}'. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  annihilation  of  the  soul  has  not  yet  ac- 
quired a  definite  name,  though  its  adher- 
ents include  a  number  of  learned  men, 
capable  in  the  expression  of  thought  and 
[     '40    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 


in  the  coining  of  words.  "Materialism" 
is  the  word  used,  in  the  absence  of  a  better, 
to  name  this  doctrine,  but  the  dictionaries 
do  not  justify  that  use.  Haeckel,  recog- 
nizing its  namelessness,  has  recently  in- 
vented the  word  "  thanatism  " — in  English, 
"deathism"  —  a  fit  name  for  the  belief  in 
the  extinction  of  the  soul.  I  shall,  how- 
ever, use  the  word  "  materialism,"  which 
is  better  known. 

What  rational  foundation  exists  for  the 
belief  in  annihilation?  Has  science  dis- 
covered annihilation?  No;  science  has 
not  discovered  annihilation;  it  has  not 
discovered  annihilation  even  in  the  physi- 
cal body  of  man.  At  the  change  which, 
through  old  custom,  we  call  death,  the 
physical  body  of  the  individual  is  trans- 
formed under  ordinary  conditions  into 
numberless  other  living  bodies,  the  one 
life  into  swarms  of  life.  Even  if  the  physi- 
cal body  be  consumed  by  fire,  not  one 
atom  is  annihilated,  and  life  springs  from 

r  '41  ] 


BALANCE 

the  ashes.  Science  is  acquainted  with  mo- 
tion only,  not  rest  ;  with  life,  not  death. 
Science  recognizes  the  indestructiblHty 
of  matter  and  force,  that  nothing  in  the 
phj'sical  world  is  annihilated.  It  comes  to 
this  —  that  the  materialist,  accepting  the 
immortality  of  matter  and  force,  must 
affirm  that  nothing  dies  but  the  soul. 

There  are  other  and  more  serious  incon- 
sistencies in  the  theory  of  annihilation. 
The  ceaselessness  of  action  and  reaction, 
of  cause  and  effect,  is  a  fundamental  postu- 
late of  science.  "  To  every  action  there 
is  an  equal  and  opposite  reaction,"  says 
Newton.  If  death  ends  all,  then  the  indi- 
vidual reaches  in  extinction  a  point  where 
moral  effect  fails  to  follow  moral  cause, 
and  the  materialist  must  den}-  the  cease- 
lessness of  cause  and  effect. 

One  dies  in  the  commission  of  a  crime, 
when  his  heart  is  full  of  greed  or  lust  or 
hate;  if  death  ends  all,  he  suffers  no  con- 
sequences of  his  sin;  he  goes  to  the  same 
[     H^     ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

silence  which  awaits  the  martyr  who  dies 
for  man.  If  suicide  be  a  sin,  then  the  sui- 
cide commits  an  act,  if  death  ends  all,  for 
which  there  is  no  penalty.  The  doctrine 
of  extinction  includes  the  assumption  that 
there  will  be  no  reckoning  hereafter  for 
the  tyrants,  oppressors  and  scourgers  of 
the  weak,  for  the  brutes  who  trample  on 
women  and  children,  for  ingrates  and 
murderers,  for  those  who  have  tortured 
their  kind  —  that  man  sows  what  he  will 
not  reap,  and  reaps  what  he  has  not  sown. 
Religion  affirms,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
death  does  not  break  the  chain  of  cause 
and  effect;  that  men  shall  reap  as  they 
sow;  that  there  shall  come  a  day  of  reck- 
oning for  the  tyrant  and  the  torturer;  that 
the  suicide  shall  not  escape  the  conse- 
quences of  self  destruction;  that  no  man 
shall  escape  the  penalty  of  his  sin,  or  be 
denied  the  reward  of  his  virtue;  that,  for 
those  who  live  justly,  there  is  no  trouble 
which  will  not  end,  no  night  of  sorrow  or 
[     H^     ] 


BALANCE 

anguish  which  will  not  be  succeeded  by 
the  dawn  of  peace  and  joy. 

Relijrion  declares  that  moral  accounta- 
bility  is  ceaseless;  materialism  declares 
that  moral  accountability  ends  in  death. 
Religion  is  the  recognition  that  right  rules 
the  world;  materialism  is  the  recognition 
that  wrong  rules  the  world.  Religion  de- 
clares that  the  wrongs  which  are  not 
righted  here  will  be  righted  hereafter; 
materialism  declares  that  the  wrongs  which 
are  not  righted  here  ivill  be  righted  no- 
where. 

Materialism  is  a  sweeping  denial  of 
good  and  right.  In  denying  the  ceaseless- 
ness  of  action  and  reaction,  it  denies  the 
uniformity  of  Nature;  in  denying  the  per- 
sistence of  the  soul,  it  proclaims  the  doc- 
trine of  annihilation,  which  is  unknown 
to  science;  in  denying  the  continuance 
of  human  accountability,  it  denies  the 
foundation  of  morals.  Materialism  is  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  wrong,  of  hopeless  in- 
[     '44    ] 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   VERITY 

justice.  Comprehending  the  nature  and 
meaning  of  the  theory  of  annihilation, 
we  shall  understand  why  it  is  nameless; 
why  our  language  has  failed  to  produce 
a  word  to  fit  its  exact  meaning;  why  its 
most  famous  living  defender,  Haeckel, 
has  been  unable  to  coin  for  it  a  better 
name  than  the  somber  and  forbidding  word 
"  deathism." 

We  shall  search  in  vain  for  any  good 
or  substantial  fruits  of  materialism  —  for 
hospitals,  charities  or  institutions  of  learn- 
ing founded  in  its  name  or  honor;  for 
monuments  which  recognize  it;  for  any 
part  that  it  has  played  in  the  advancement 
of  civilization;  for  uplifting  songs,  hymns, 
poems  or  speeches  inspired  by  it;  for  a 
noble  thought  or  sentiment  that  is  depend- 
ent upon  it;  for  sublime  or  heroic  deeds 
in  its  defense.  The  doctrine  of  material- 
ism, built  upon  an  imperfect  understand- 
ing of  its  relations  and  consequences,  is  a 
cold,  dry,  unstimulating  faith  which  has 
[     H?     ] 


BALANCE 


never  reached  the  human  heart  save  with 
the  icy  touch  of  hopelessness  and  despair. 

The  scientific  interpretations  of  Nature 
have  advanced  constantly  in  breadth  — 
into  the  uniform,  the  boundless,  the  uni- 
versal, the  eternal,  tlic  ceaseless,  the  death- 
less. Upon  these  broad  grounds,  religion 
and  science  meet  —  on  grounds  of  life, 
not  death;  of  persistence,  not  annihilation; 
of  right,  not  wrong  —  on  the  ground  of 
the  uniformity  of  Nature:  that  the  conse- 
quences of  human  action  are  as  definite  as 
the  consequences  of  chemical  action;  that 
the  laws  of  equivalence  and  compensation 
which  operate  in  the  realm  of  physics  act 
with  the  same  unfailing  certainty,  and  with 
the  same  eternal  ceaselessness,  upon  the 
soul  of  man. 


[      '4^     ] 


dbe  fiibcrsibe  prc^iS 

EUctrotyped  and  printed  by  //.  O.  Houghton  &'  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


ETERNALISM 

A  THEORY  OF 
INFINITE  JUSTICE 

By  ORLANDO  J.  SMITH 

?N  this  volume  the  author  discusses  the 
fundamental  principles  of  Religion,  and 
seeks  an  answer  to  such  questions  as 
these  :  "  If  God  or  Nature  has  created 
a  criminal,  can  we  acquit  the  Creator 
of  all  accountability  for  the  criminal  ?  Has  not  the 
soul  which  is  created  vicious  been  deeply  wronged? 
How  can  men  be  held  to  equal  moral  accountability 
if  they  have  not  been  endowed  in  the  beginning  with 
equal  goodness,  equal  strength,  equal  intelligence  ? 
Are  those  who  are  born  vicious  really  the  victims  of 
the  malice  of  Nature  or  of  the  wrath  of  God  ?  " 

He  reaches  the  conclusion  that  creation  and  anni- 
hilation are  unknown  to  science,  and  that  the  only 
theory  of  Infinite  Justice  will  be  found  in  the  assump- 
tion that  the  individual  soul  is  eternal,  —  pre-existent 
and  deathless  —  that  each  man  builds  his  own  charac- 
ter, "  If  his  soul  be  mean,  it  is  the  hovel  which  he 
has  made  for  himself ;  if  it  be  noble,  it  is  a  palace  of 
his  own  building." 


A  tiutiiber  of  theologians  and  other  thinkers,  7i.'ho  liis- 
sent  from  the  conclusions  of  the  author  in  particulars 
or  in  general,  have  made  these  comments  upon  "  Eter- 
nalism ."  — 

Dr.  William  Henry  Scott,  Ohio  State  University  : 
"  A  strong  and  earnest  book.  .  .  .  Candid,  thoughtful 
and  suggestive.  .  .  .  The  earnest  desire  for  truth  and 
the  noble  and  fervent  passion  for  justice  which  per- 
vade it  will  prove  to  be  a  mental  tonic  of  uncommon 
wholesomeness  and  virtue." 

Dr.  Alvah  Hovey,  Newton  Theological  Institution: 
"  In  spirit  and  style  this  work  is  bold,  positive,  con- 
troversial, and  attractive." 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace :  "  A  bold  effort  to  solve 
the  great  problem  of  the  universe.  .  .  .  The  author 
of  this  book  treats  the  subject  from  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent standpoint  from  most  of  his  predecessors,  and 
may  thus  claim  a  certain  amount  of  originality.  He 
possesses  also  a  terse  and  forcible  style." 

Professor  N.  S.  Shaler :  "  This  view  [of  the  eternal 
nature  of  the  individual  soul]  is  maintained  in  this 
remarkable  book  with  a  rare  skill  in  presentation. 
Within  the  limits  of  the  writing  the  task  could  hardly 
have  been  more  effectively  or  more  logically  accom- 
plished. .  .  . 

"  The  value  of  '  Eternalism  '  is  not  to  be  measured 
by  the  soundness  of  its  contentions.  It  is  rather  to 
be  taken  as  the  sign  of  a  return  to  the  primitive 
method  of  explaining  the  universe  by  the  individual 
consciousness.  Men  have  gone  far  with  natural 
science  and  philosophy  with  the  hope  that  they  might 
find  an  answer  to  the  grave  question  as  to  their  place 


in  the  realm.  Here  is  a  man  who  has  read  much  and 
widely,  who,  for  all  his  learning,  trusts  to  his  instincts 
for  guidance ;  for  while  the  book  has  evidently  been  a 
matter  of  most  elaborate  preparation,  having  been  sub- 
mitted to  several  hundred  critics  before  publication, 
and  the  answers  of  some  four  hundred  considered  in 
the  revision,  it  remains  singularly  original  and  indi- 
vidual." 

Monaire  D.  Comvay :  "  When  he  [the  author]  looks 
into  his  consciousness  and  writes,  when  he  transmutes 
his  experience  into  thought,  he  is  clear,  powerful,  and 
convincing.  .  .  .  The  author  by  vigorous  reasoning 
brings  religion  into  the  sphere  of  nature  and  life 
where  it  may  be  studied  in  freedom  and  harmonized 
with  consciousness  and  thought." 

Dr.  Henry  Goodwin  Smith,  Lane  TJieological  Semi- 
nary:  "  *  Eternalism'  is  written  by  an  independent 
and  a  sincere  thinker.  .  .  .  The  author  shows  no  lack 
of  ingenuity  in  dealing  with  special  difficulties." 

Dr.  Francis  Brown,  Union  Theological  Seminary: 
"  The  sentences  are  crisp,  the  chapters  are  short.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  hard  to  read,  and  its  main  purpose  is  clear. 
.  .  .  His  [the  author's]  standard  is  unswerving,  his 
ideal  lofty." 

Dr.  Paul  Cams :  "  An  unusual  and  noteworthy 
attempt  at  solving  the  most  difficult  and  basic  prob- 
lem of  life." 

Crown  8vo.  $1.25,  nef.    (Postage  13  cents.) 

Published  by  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 

UBRARY 


inliiniliilifnniii,!?!.'"''^''-'^'  llliRAHYrACILITY 


AA    000  623  456    i 


/■ 


